Ryan Smith, who wrestled with Andulazeez at Red Bank High School, said he was a “swell guy.”

“He was an unbelievable nice person,” Smith said. “He was honestly one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met.”

Smith said that Abdulazeez was very religious, and that he would argue “back and forth” with the boys’ high school wrestling coach during fasting rituals.

“His whole family was really religious,” Smith said. “His family, they all wore the drapes and stuff, all the women in his family wore the little hoods.”

Andulazeez became an mixed martial artist after high school, Smith said. Smith did not know what motivated his former friend to attack the military installations in Chattanooga.

“You’ve got to make good decisions, and he didn’t make a good decision,” Smith said.

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The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center is reporting no apparent nexus to terrorism has been uncovered in the investigation of the fatal shootings in Tennessee, but intelligence officials are monitoring the investigation closely.

It also says there has been no credible claim of responsibility so far for anyone who might have influenced the gunman, who also was killed.

Those details were in a report the counterterrorism center circulated Thursday evening to U.S. law enforcement agencies. The Associated Press reviewed the report.

Even though the report says there was no connection uncovered so far to terrorism, it described efforts by the Islamic State group to revitalize homegrown extremists to conduct physical attacks inside the United States.

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Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is expressing condolences for four Marines killed in shootings in Tennessee. He called the victims “four heroes.”

Maybus says “the tragedy in Chattanooga is both devastating and senseless.”

The Marines were killed at the Navy Operational Support Center, often referred to as a “reserve center.” It’s used by both Navy and Marine personnel to provide training and readiness support for reserve components to support the services. The Navy maintains 123 such facilities across the United States and its territories.

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Attorney General Loretta Lynch says she’s directing the FBI to take the lead on a “national security” investigation into the Chattanooga attacks.

In a statement, she said the two shootings at military sites in Chattanooga represented a “heinous attack.”

Federal authorities have not identified a motive but have said they are investigating the possibility it was an act of terrorism.

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Crissy Essex, left, 44, Sabrina Cupell, and Cheyenne Essex bring signs and an American flag to a building memorial at the 6215 Lee Highway location where a gunman fired multiple rounds into the Armed Forces Career Center.

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St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 305 W. Seventh St., will remain open until 8 p.m. tonight. All are welcome to enter through the front doors for prayer in the Nave.

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BREAKING: Two women were led away in handcuffs from the suspect’s home. It’s not clear at this time who these females are.

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Vice President Joe Biden says the United States will get to the bottom of the shootings that killed at least four Marines in Chattanooga.

Biden says the young Marines killed were part of what he’s calling “probably the most incredible generation that this country has seen.” He’s pointing out that more than 4 million Americans have signed up for military service since 9/11, even though they knew they’d almost certainly be put in harm’s way.

Biden says the families of those troops have already given a lot to the country.

Biden is asking Americans to keep the families of the victims in their prayers.

The vice president was speaking at a summit of liberal activists in Washington.

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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has described the shootings as an episode of “senseless violence” that she linked to other recent mass shootings.

“It’s terrible when we lose Marines anywhere in the world. But to lose four in Chattanooga, Tennessee is just heartbreaking,” she told reporters after holding her first town hall event in New Hampshire.

“I hope that we can find a way to stop this kind of violence that is stalking our children and people in study and people who wear the uniform of our country,” Clinton said.

Chattanooga Police Department instructor Ricky Ballard guards the front door at the Chattanooga Fire Training center prior to a news conference about a domestic terror incident that killed four Marines at the nearby Naval Reserve facility on Amnicola Highway.

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BREAKING: Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam is coming to Chattanooga this evening for a briefing from TEMA Director Purkey at the Emergency Operations Center.

‘We expect that to take place around 7:30 p.m. ET,’ Dave Smith says

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Statement by President Obama:

I just received a briefing from FBI Director Comey, as well as my White House team, about the tragic shooting that took place in Chattanooga today. We don’t know yet all the details. We know that what appears to be a lone gunman carried out these attacks. We’ve identified a name. And at this point, a full investigation is taking place. The FBI will be in the lead, working closely with local law enforcement.

We’ve also been in contact with the Department of Defense to make sure that all our Defense facilities are properly attentive and vigilant as we sort through exactly what happened. And as details of the investigation proceed, we’ll make sure that the FBI, as well as local law enforcement are providing the public with all the information that’s involved.

My main message right now is, obviously, the deepest sympathies of the American people to the four Marines that have been killed. It is a heartbreaking circumstance for these individuals who have served our country with great valor to be killed in this fashion.

And although the families are still in the process of being contacted, I want them to know that I speak for the American people in expressing our deepest condolences, and knowing that they have our full support as they try to overcome the grief that’s involved here.

I also want to say that there are reports of injuries to Chattanooga local law enforcement officials. Thankfully, as far as we know at this point, they have survived the assault. And we want to make sure that they know that we’re thinking of them. They’re in our thoughts and prayers.

We take all shootings very seriously. Obviously, when you have an attack on a U.S. military facility, then we have to make sure that we have all the information necessary to make an assessment in terms of how this attack took place, and what further precautions we can take in the future. And as we have more information, we’ll let the public know.

But in the meantime, I’d ask all Americans to pray for the families who are grief-stricken at this point. And I want everybody to understand that we will be thorough and prompt in figuring out exactly what happened.

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A Hamilton County Sheriff’s officer carries a rifle out of Erlanger Hospital’s emergency room when the lockdown is ended after a shooting at both the Amnicola Highway Armed Forces Career Center and the Naval Operational Support Center on Amnicola Highway.

Carol, we’re still working to gather the details on that. Stay here for the latest details.

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Comment From Carol L

Where did the shooter work?

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TN House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick: I am deeply saddened to hear of today’s horrific events in our hometown of Chattanooga. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. I have been in contact with state and local officials to monitor any developments. I have the utmost confidence in our law enforcement agencies to handle this situation in a swift and professional manner.

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Congressman Marsha Blackburn:
I am deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence that has been carried out on our military facilities in Chattanooga today, resulting in the deaths of four Marines. This is a heartbreaking loss for our nation’s military and the entire Chattanooga community. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those involved and the people of Chattanooga. I know that the community will come together to help each other heal.

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Rep. Tom Graves: My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the Marines who were killed in the horrific attack in Chattanooga today. These Marines perished while serving our country and I know that our community in Northwest Georgia is forever grateful for their sacrifice.

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Rep. Chuck Fleischmann: “This has been a tragic day for Chattanooga and Southeast Tennessee. My heart and prayers go out to everyone involved in this horrendous situation. I have spoken with local, state and federal officials and will continue to monitor this situation closely.”

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President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks to members of the media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on the shooting in Chattanooga.

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POTUS said he was briefed by FBI director and White House team on Chatonooga shooting. We don’t yet know all details, POTUS said. The attacker appears to be a lone gunman, he said.

POTUS said he’s in contact with DOD. FBI is taking lead in investigation along with local law enforcement, POTUS said.

POTUS said his main message is “deepest sympathies to the American people” and the death of four Marines is “heartbreaking.” POTUS asked all Americans to pray for families of victims, who are still in process of being contacted.

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Multiple people who said they went to Red Bank High School with Abdulazeez sent the Times Free Press photos of what appears to be his senior picture and senior quote in the school’s yearbook.

“My name causes national security alerts,” the quote reads. “What does yours do?”

“Another day in America, another mass shooting. While we are still learning the facts behind this latest mass murder, easy access to increasingly lethal firearms is the one factor that is almost constant in these attacks. Lives are lost, families are devastated, and communities are scarred, yet all too often we look for answers while ignoring the very tools that are commonly used to perpetrate these heinous acts. Until this changes, such horrific events are inevitable.”

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BREAKING: President Obama is expected to make a statement on the Chattanooga shooting from the Oval Office shortly.

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The shooting suspect’s father was appointed as a special policeman (unarmed) by the Chattanooga City Council.

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It’s confirmed that shooter’s father works for the City of Chattanooga Public Works Department.

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Abdulazeez means “servant of the almighty” in Arabic.

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Comment From tn wife

We need not forget to pray for the young man doing the shooting. How sad to get to this point

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BREAKING: Mohammad Youssduf Adbulazeer was arrested on a DUI charge on April 20, 2015.

Four U.S. marines are dead after a gunman opened fired at two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Thursday.

Authorities say the shooter was also killed. One police officer was being treated after he was shot in the ankle while “actively and enthusiastically engaging” the gunman.

“This is a nightmare for the city,” Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke said at a news conference. “It is incomprehensible to see what happened.”

Gunfire was reported at a military recruitment centre in a strip mall as well as the Navy Operational Support Center. The two scenes are roughly 10 kilometres apart.

Bill Killian, the U.S. Attorney for the eastern district of Tennessee, told the he was treating the shootings as an “act of domestic terrorism.”

FBI special agent Ed Reinhold later clarified that investigators weren’t clear on motive and were treating the shooting as a “terrorism investigation until it can be determined that it was not.”

“We are looking at every possible avenue — whether is as terrorism, whether it was domestic or international, or whether it was a simple criminal act,” Reinhold said.

U.S President Barack Obama was briefed on the shootings Thursday.

Photos of the recruiting centre at the strip mall showed its doors were riddled with more than 20 bullet holes.

Chattanooga’s Lee University was in lockdown around noon Thursday, advising all on campus to “stay inside until further notice.” A woman who answered the phone at Chattanooga State Community College said the campus was also in lockdown.

“Somebody brutally and brazenly attacked members of our armed services,”Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher said at the Thursday news conference.

Loretta Blevins, head server at the Track’s End Restaurant less than a kilometre down the road from the recruiting centre, said there was about 16 people huddled inside the restaurant as emergency vehicles streamed up and down the road.

“It’s breathtaking when you see all the emergency vehicles and you have no idea what’s going on or how close it is to you,” she said.

Brian Lepley, a spokesman with the U.S. Army Recruiting Command out of Fort Knox, Kentucky, said the recruiting centre on Old Lee Highway in Chattanooga has recruiting services for all four branches of the military. The Army recruiters told Lepley they were not hit and not injured. They have evacuated and are safe. He has no information about recruiters for the other branches.

Sgt. 1st Class Robert Dodge, 36, was working at the recruitment centre and heard “one single shot, which kind of sparked our attention.”

“Shortly after that, just a few seconds, the shooter began shooting more rounds,” he said. “We realized it was an actual shooting, so we then initiated our active shooter drill: getting down low to the ground, moving to a safe location. And we waited until everything seemed to be clear.”

Four Marines and gunman killed in Tennessee shooting that officials call ‘domestic terrorism’

By Mark Berman

Four Marines were killed when a gunman opened fire at a Naval facility and an armed forces recruiting center in Tennessee on Thursday morning, a violent spree that authorities say they are investigating as a possible terrorist attack.

The gunman, who has not been identified, was also killed.

“While we expect our sailors and Marines to go into harm’s way, and they do so without hesitation, an attack at home, in our community, is insidious and unfathomable,” Ray Mabus, Secretary of the Navy, said in a statement.

In addition to the four Marines, the gunman injured another military service member, a Chattanooga police officer and one other person, according to military officials.

“Somebody brutally and brazenly attacked members of our armed services,” Fred Fletcher, the Chattanooga police chief, said at at a news conference.

The Marine Corps said four Marines were killed in the shootings. Ed Reinhold, the special agent in charge for the FBI, declined to discuss details of the investigation, which he described as in its initial stages.

“We will treat this as a terrorism investigation until we determine it was not,” he said. He added: “We have not determined if it was an act of terrorism or a criminal act.”

Reinhold said that the shooting appeared to be the work of a lone gunman, who he said was from the area or at least lived in the area. This gunman, who did not work at either facility, had “numerous weapons” on him, Reinhold said, and was not wearing body armor.

One of the shootings occurred at a Navy Operational Support Center, which the U.S. Navy said was a facility that provides support for reserve component personnel. The other shooting took place at an armed forces recruiting center. The Pentagon said Thursday afternoon the Marines would be identified after next of kin were notified.

The shooting is being viewed as “an act of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney William C. Killian said. However, Killian said the investigation would bear out precisely what kind of crime this was, cautioning people not to get caught up in the label.

4 Marines killed in attacks on Chattanooga military facilities

Last Updated Jul 16, 2015 4:11 PM EDT

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire at two military facilities Thursday in Tennessee, killing at least four Marines and wounding a soldier and a police officer, officials told CBS News.

The shooter also was killed. Two law enforcement sources told CBS News that the shooting suspect was identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.

“Today was a nightmare for the city of Chattanooga,” Mayor Andy Berke said. “As a city, we will respond to this with every available resource that we have.”

9PHOTOS

Chattanooga shooting

U.S. Attorney Bill Killian said officials were treating the attacks as an “act of domestic terrorism,” though FBI Special Agent in Charge Ed Reinhold said authorities were still investigating a motive. The first shooting happened around 10:45 a.m.; the attacks were over within a half-hour.

Berke said five people died in all, including the gunman. A police officer was shot in the ankle, and others were wounded, he said.

U.S. officials told CBS News correspondent David Martin that four U.S. Marines were among the dead.

A Marine recruiter was treated at a hospital for a gunshot wound to the leg, the Marine Corps said on its Facebook page.

“Lives have been lost from some faithful people who have been serving our country, and I think I join all Tennesseans in being both sickened and saddened by this,” Gov. Bill Haslam said.

Shooting at military recruiting center in Chattanooga

The shootings began at a recruiting center on Old Lee Highway in Chattanooga where five branches of the military all have adjoining offices. A gunshot rang out around 10:30 or 10:45 a.m., said Sgt. 1st Class Robert Dodge, 36, the center leader for U.S. Army recruiting at the center.

“Shortly after that, just a few seconds, the shooter began shooting more rounds. We realized it was an actual shooting,” he said.

He and his colleagues then got on the ground and barricaded themselves in a safe place. Dodge estimated there were 30 to 50 shots fired.

He did not see the shooter or a vehicle. The Army recruiting office was not damaged, but doors and glass were damaged at the neighboring Air Force, Navy and Marine offices, he said.

Law enforcement officials told recruiters that the shooter was in a car, stopped in front of the facility, shot at the building and drove off, said Brian Lepley, a spokesman with the U.S. Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

One witness told CBS affiliate WDEF that a man who was in a silver Mustang convertible was “just unloading a large gun on the Naval recruiting office.”

The recruiting center sits in a short strip between a Cricket Wireless and an Italian restaurant with no apparent additional security. Nearby, Nicholas Donohue heard a blast of gunshots while working at Desktop Solutions. But he had music playing and wasn’t quite sure what the noise had been. He turned off the music and seconds later, a second blast thundered. He took shelter in a back room.

“Even though it knew it was most likely gunfire I heard, you also don’t want to believe it’s happening in the moment,” he said. “Since I didn’t see anything, I couldn’t be sure.”

By the time he emerged, police were cordoning off the area.

Within minutes of that attack, the shooter then opened fire at the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center Chattanooga, about 7 miles away. Reinhold said all of the dead were killed there.

The center sits between the highway and a pathway that runs through Tennessee RiverPark, a popular park at a bend in the Tennessee River northeast of downtown Chattanooga. It’s in a light industrial area that includes a Coca-Cola bottling plant.

The two entrances to the fenced facility have unmanned gates and concrete barriers that require approaching cars to slow down to drive around them.

Five people were killed on Thursday including a suspected gunman who opened fire at two military-related facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee in an attack local officials described as brazen, brutal and an act of domestic terrorism.

CBS News quoted two law enforcement officials as saying the suspect was Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez. No motive has yet been given. The suspected shooter, who has not been officially identified, is believed to have lived in the area and acted alone, local police said.

The other four killed were Marines at a Naval Reserve Center, a military official said in Washington, DC.

“We are treating this as an act of domestic terrorism,” said Bill Killian, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, adding that no official determination of the nature of the crime had yet been made.

The suspect, seen driving in an open-top Mustang, is believed to have first gone to a joint military recruiting center in a strip mall, and peppered the facility with gunfire. No one was injured in the attack.

“Everybody was at a standstill and as soon as he pulled away everyone scrabbled trying to make sure everyone was OK,” said Erica Wright, who works two doors down from the center.

The gunman then drove off to a Naval Reserve Center about 6 miles (10 km) away, fatally shooting the four Marines before being fatally shot himself in a firefight with police.

Three others were wounded in the attacks, including a police officer and a Marine. The shootings began at about 10:45 a.m. local time and ended about 30 minutes later.

“There were numerous Chattanooga and Hamilton County officers who responded. They arrived on the scene extremely quickly. They actively and enthusiastically engaged this brazen criminal, and one of those officers was injured by gunfire from this criminal,” Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher told a news conference.

A White House spokesman said President Barack Obama had been told about the shooting.

“The President has been briefed by his national security staff on the Chattanooga shooting, and will continue to get updates as warranted,” said spokesman Eric Schultz.

Lockdowns had been put in place at businesses, a college and other facilities near the shooting sites.

The city along the Tennessee River is in the southeastern section of the state just north of the Georgia border. Just over 173,000 people live there, according to a 2013 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Terrorism in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A common definition of terrorism is the systematic use or threatened use of violence in order to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change.[1][2] This article serves as a list and compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts of terrorism, and other such items pertaining to terrorist activities within the domestic borders of the United States by persons acting in the interests of states or non-state actors. It does not include actions by agents of the U.S. government itself, such as the 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia or the 1993Waco Massacre in Texas, which are regarded by some as acts of state terrorism.

October 16, 1859: Anti-slavery Pottawatomie massacre – In response to the sacking of Lawrence, John Brown led a group of abolitionists in the murders of five pro-slavery Kansas settlers.

April 14, 1865: Pro-slavery Abraham Lincoln assassination – Part of a conspiracy by Confederate supporters John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward in Washington, D.C. to create chaos for the purpose of overthrowing the Federal Government. Booth succeeded in assassinating Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre, Seward survived numerous stabbings by Powell who stabbed others as he was chased out of Seward’s home, and Atzerodt failed to carry out the planned murder of Johnson. Booth was killed by soldiers when he failed to surrender. Eight conspirators were tried and convicted for their role in the conspiracy by a military tribunal, including Powell and Atzerodt. Four defendants were executed for their roles including Powell, Azterodt and Mary Surratt, the first woman ever to be hanged by the U.S. government.

October 28, 1893: Carter Harrison assassination-Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast was upset that the Mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison, Sr., advocated for the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, seeing it as an action against the citizenry and acting under the influence of England, the Rothschild bankers of Europe, and Wall St. Prendergast imagined this as part of a larger conspiracy that betrayed the will of Jesus Christ. As a delusional newspaper man, he found himself unable to influence policy in Washington or Chicago and ultimately took it upon himself to change the course of history by assassinating the powerful mayor. He felt that his inevitable acquittal would establish a precedent wherein Christian law would be established throughout the city. Prendergast was found sane by a jury and hanged on July 14, 1894.[3]

July 2, 1915: Frank Holt (also known as Eric Muenter), a German professor who wanted to stop American support of the Allies in World War I, exploded a bomb in the reception room of the U.S. Senate. The next morning he tried to assassinate J. P. Morgan, Jr. the son of the financier whose company served as Great Britain’s principal U.S. purchasing agent for munitions and other war supplies. Muenter was overpowered by Morgan in Morgan’s Long Island home before killing himself in prison on July 7.[6][7]

July 22, 1916: The Preparedness Day Bombing killed ten people and injured 40 in San Francisco. Two radical labor leaders, Warren K. Billings and Thomas Mooney, were convicted of the crime and sentenced to hang, but with little evidence of their guilt both sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. They were eventually pardoned, and the actual bombers’ identities remain unknown.

1916, July 30: The Black Tom explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey was an act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents to prevent the material from being used by the Allies in World War I.

November 24, 1917: A bomb exploded in a Milwaukee police station, killing nine officers and a civilian. Anarchists were suspected.[8][9]

1919 United States anarchist bombings: A series of package bombs were mailed to prominent business and government leaders around the country. Most were intercepted and did not go off, with only one person killed. Italian Galleanist anarchists were suspected, but not convicted.

1920 Wall Street bombing: A horse-drawn wagon filled with explosives was detonated in front of the J. P. Morgan bank on Wall Street, killing 38 and wounding 143. Galleanist anarchists were again suspected, but the perpetrators were never caught.

May 31, 1921: During the Tulsa race riot, there were reports that whites dropped dynamite from airplanes onto a black ghetto in Tulsa. The riot killed 39–300 people and destroyed more than 1,100 homes.[10]

May 18, 1927: The Bath School disaster (bombings) killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth grades (7–12 years of age) attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history. The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe.

October 10, 1933: A Boeing 247 was destroyed in mid-flight over Indiana by a nitroglycerin bomb. All seven people aboard were killed. This incident was the first proven case of air sabotage in the history of aviation. The identity of the perpetrator and the motive for the attack are unknown.

July 4, 1940: Two New York City policemen were killed and two critically wounded while examining a bomb they had found at the British Pavilion at the World’s Fair

1940–1956: George Metesky, the Mad Bomber, placed over 30 bombs in New York City in public places such as Grand Central Station and The Paramount Theatre injuring ten during this period in protest of the high rates of a local electric utility. He also sent many threatening letters to various high profile individuals.

1951: A wave of hate related terrorist attacks occurred in Florida. African-Americans were dragged and beaten to death, with 11 race-related bombings, the dynamiting of synagogues, and a Jewish School in Miami and explosives found outside of Catholic Churches in Miami.[11][12]

1970s

The most active perpetrators of terrorism in New York City were Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN), a Puerto Rican separatist group, responsible for 40 NYC attacks in this decade. The Jewish Defense League (JDL), which engaged in attacks against targets it perceived to be anti-Semitic, launched 27 attacks during this period. Both the Independent Armed Revolutionary Commandos (CRIA), another Puerto Rican separatist group, and Omega 7, an anti-Castro Cuban organization, were also each responsible for 16 attacks during this period.[21]

April 1970: At Stanford University over a period of several nights bands of student radicals systematically set fires, break windows and throw rocks.[17]

November 21, 1970: Bombing of the City Hall of Portland, Oregon in an attempt to destroy the state’s bronze Liberty Bell replica. The late night explosion destroyed the display foyer, blew out the building doors, damaged the council hall, and blew out windows more than a block away. The night janitor was injured in the blast. The crime remains unsolved, though a number of local anti-war and radical leftist groups of the era remain the primary suspects.

June 13, 1974: The 29th floor of the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was bombed with dynamite at 9:41 pm resulting in no injuries. The radical leftist group Weatherman took credit, but no suspects have ever been identified.[23]

Summer 1974: “Alphabet Bomber” Muharem Kurbegovich bombed the Pan Am Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport, killing three and injuring eight. He also firebombed the houses of a judge and two police commissioners as well as one of the commissioner’s cars. He burned down two Marina Del Rey apartment buildings and threatened Los Angeles with a gas attack. His bomb defused at the Greyhound Bus station was the most powerful the LAPD bomb squad had handled up until that time. His personal vendetta against a judge and the commissioners grew into demands for an end to immigration and naturalization laws, as well as any laws about sex.[24]

January 24, 1975: A bomb was exploded in the Fraunces Tavern of New York City, killing four people and injuring more than 50 others. The Puerto Rico nationalist group FALN, the Armed Forces of Puerto Rican National Liberation, which had other bomb incidents in New York in the 1970s, claimed responsibility. No one was ever prosecuted for the bombing.

September 11, 1976: Croatian terrorists hijacked a TWA airliner and diverted it to Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, and then Paris, demanding a manifesto be printed. One police officer was killed and three injured during an attempt to defuse a bomb that contained their communiques in a New York City train station locker.[26]Zvonko Bušić who served 32 years in prison for the attack, was released and returned to Croatia in July 2008. In September 2013 Bušić shot himselfand was given a hero’s funeral by the Croatian government.[27]

1976 September 21: Orlando Letelier, a former member of the Chilean government, was killed by a car bomb in Washington, D.C. along with his assistant Ronni Moffitt. The killing was carried out by members of the Chilean Intelligence Agency, DINA.

1980s

1980 June 3: Bombing of the Statue of Liberty. At 7:30 pm, a time delayed explosive device detonated in the Statue of Liberty’s Story Room. Detonated after business hours, the bomb did not injure anyone, but caused $18,000 in damage, destroying many of the exhibits. The room was sealed off and left unrepaired until the Statue of Liberty restoration project that began years later. FBI investigators believed the perpetrators were Croatian seeking for media coverage of living conditions of Croats in Yugoslavia, though no arrests were made.

1981 December 7: James W. von Brunn served 6 years in prison for attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve at their headquarters in Washington, D.C. He testified his motive was to raise awareness of alleged “treacherous and unconstitutional” acts by the Federal Reserve.[29]

1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack: In what is believed to be the first incident of bioterrorism in the United States the Rajneesh movement spreads salmonella in salad bars at 10 restaurants in The Dalles, Oregon, to influence a local election which backfired as suspicious residents came out in droves to prevent the election of Rajneeshee candidates. Health officials say that 751 people were sickened and more than 40 hospitalized. All but one of the establishments attacked went out of business. Investigators believed that similar attacks had previously been carried out in Salem, Portland and other cities in Oregon.[30]

1984 July 18: Alan Berg, Jewish lawyer-talk show host was shot and killed in the driveway of his home on Capitol Hill, Denver, Colorado, by members of a White Nationalist group called The Order. Berg had stridently argued with a member of the group on the show earlier who was convicted in his murder.

1993 September 5: Charles F. Hockenbarger of the Westboro Baptist Church assaults the Rev. W. Gerald Weeks while the Reverend was counter-protesting a WBC anti-homosexuality protest outside Topeka‘s First Lutheran Church by carrying a sign that read “God’s Love Speaks Loudest”. Hockenbarger receives a sentence of 5 days in jail, appeals the sentence, and loses the appeal.[33]

1994 December 10: Advertising executive, Thomas J. Mosser, was killed after opening a mail package from the Unabomber, being the second fatality of the mailbomb campaign.

1994 December 30: Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, two receptionists in abortion and family planning clinics, were killed by John Salvi.

1997 February 24: 69-year-old Palestinian Ali Hassan Abu Kamal opened fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from the United States, Argentina, Switzerland and France before turning the gun on himself.[34] A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims this was a punishment attack against the “enemies of Palestine“. His widow claimed he became suicidal after losing $300,000 in a business venture. In a 2007 interview with the New York Daily News his daughter said her mother’s story was a cover crafted by the Palestinian Authority and that her father wanted to punish the United States for its support of Israel.[35]

2001 September 11: the September 11, 2001 attacks were carried out by Muslim extremists. The attacks killed 2,507civilians, 72 law enforcement officers, 343 firefighters, and 55 military personnel, and were carried out using hijacked commercial airplanes to damage the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The 110-story skyscrapers in New York City were ultimately destroyed, and the Pentagon received extensive damage in the western side of the building. Building 7 of the World Trade Center was also destroyed in the attack, though there were no casualties. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania before it could reach its target.

2001 September 18 – November: 2001 anthrax attacks. Letters tainted with anthrax killed five across the U.S., with politicians and media officials as the apparent targets. On July 31, 2008 Bruce E. Ivins a top biodefense researcher committed suicide.[41] On August 6, 2008, the FBI concluded that Ivins was solely responsible for the attacks, and suggested that Ivins wanted to bolster support for a vaccine he helped create and that he targeted two lawmakers because they were Catholics who held pro-choice views.[42] However, subsequent evaluations have found that the FBI’s investigation failed to provide any direct evidence linking Ivins to the mailings.[43]

October 2002 Beltway sniper attacks: During three weeks in October 2002, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo killed 10 people and critically injured 3 others in Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Virginia. The pair were also suspected of earlier shootings in Maryland, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, and Washington state.[46] No motivation was given at the trial, but evidence presented showed an affinity to the cause of the Islamic jihad.

2006 July 28: Seattle Jewish Federation shooting, Naveed Afzal Haq, an American citizen of Pakistani descent, killed one woman and shoots five others at the Jewish Federation building in Seattle. During the shooting, Haq told a 911 dispatcher that he was angry with American foreign policy in the Middle East.[48]

2007 October 26: A pair of improvised explosive devices were thrown at the Mexican Consulate in New York City. The fake grenades were filled with black powder, and detonated by fuses, causing very minor damage. Police were investigating the connection between this and a similar attack against the British Consulate in New York in 2005.[49]

2008 February: In the first reported incident of animal-rights extremists physically assaulted the family members of animal researchers, six masked activists attempted to force their way into the home of a University of California, Santa Cruz, researcher and injured the researcher’s husband.[50][51]

2008 March 6: A homemade bomb damaged a Recruiting Office in Times Square.[53] In June 2013 The FBI and New York City police offered a $65,000 reward for information in the case and revealed that ammunition used for the bomb is the same as is used in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.[54] On April 15, 2015 the F.B.I increased the award to $115,000 and said they have persons of interest[55]

2008 May 4: Multiple pipe bombs exploded at 1:40 am at the Edward J. Schwartz United States Courthouse in San Diego causing “considerable damage” to the entrance and lobby and sending shrapnel two blocks away, but causing no injuries. The F.B.I. is investigating links between this attack and an April 25 explosion at the FedEx building also in San Diego.[56]

2009 April 8: According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, intruders left malware in power grids, water, and sewage systems that could be activated at a later date. While the attacks which have occurred over a period of time seem to have originated in China and Russia, it is unknown if they are state-sponsored[59] or errors in the computer code.[60][61]

2009 May 25: 17-year-old Kyle Shaw sets off a crude explosive device at a Starbucks at East 92nd Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, shattering windows and destroyed a bench at the coffee shop. There were no injuries. The attack was a “bizarre tribute” of the movie Fight Club, in an attempt to emulate “Project Mayhem”, a series of assaults on corporate America portrayed in the film. Shaw took a plea agreement and was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison in November 2010.[64][65]

2009 November 5: 2009 Fort Hood shooting: Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army Major serving as a Psychiatrist, opens fire at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and wounding 29. On August 23, 2013 Hasan was convicted by a Military tribunal. Hasan acted as his own attorney and took responsibility for the attack saying his motive was jihad to fight “illegal and immoral aggression against Muslims”.[67] On August 28 Hasan was sentenced to death.[68]

2010 February 18: Austin suicide attack: Andrew Joseph Stack III flying his single engine plane flew into the Austin Texas IRS building killing himself and one IRS employee and injuring 13 others. Stack left a suicide note online, comparing the IRS to Big Brother from the novel 1984.

2013 April 15: Boston Marathon bombings: Two bombs detonated within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 and injuring more than 180 people.[74][75] Late in the evening of April 18 in Cambridge, Massachusetts an MIT campus police officer was shot and killed while sitting in his squad car. Two suspects then carjacked an SUV and fled to nearby Watertown, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. A massive police chase ensued, resulting in a shootout during which several IED‘s were thrown by the suspects. A Boston transit police officer was critically wounded and suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Russian immigrant of Chechen ethnicity, was killed. The second suspect, Tsarnaev’s younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, escaped. A “Shelter in place” order was given for Boston, Watertown, and the surrounding areas while house-to-house searches were conducted, but the suspect remained at large. Shortly after the search was called off Tsarnaev was discovered by a local resident hiding inside a boat parked in the resident’s driveway less than three blocks from the scene of the shootout. He was taken into custody after another exchange of gunfire and taken to nearby Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he was treated for injuries received during his pursuit and capture. Tsarnaev was arraigned on federal terrorism charges from his hospital bed on April 22, 2013.[76][77][78][79] Preliminary questioning indicated the Tsarnaev brothers had no ties to terrorist organizations.[80] A note written by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the boat where he was captured said the bombings were retaliation for US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan against Muslims.[81] On April 8, 2015 Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 counts related to the bombing and shootout with police.[82] On May 15, 2015 Tsarnaev was sentenced to death.[83]

2014 June 8: 2014 Las Vegas shootings: Two police officers and one civilian died in a shooting spree in the Las Vegas Valley committed by a couple, identified as Jerad and Amanda Miller, who espoused anti-government views and were reportedly inspired by the outcome of the Bundy standoff. The Millers both died during a gunfight with responding police; Jerad Miller was fatally shot by officers, while Amanda Miller committed suicide after being wounded.

2014 October 23: 2014 New York City hatchet attack: Zale Thompson injured two New York City police officers, once critically at a Queens, New York shopping district by striking them with a hatchet. 4 officers were posing for a photograph when Thompson charged them. The police opened fire killing Thompson and injuring a bystander. Thompson who converted to Islam 2 years before the attack posted “anti-government, anti-Western, anti-white” messages online.[84]

2014 November 28: Austin, Texas: Right-wing and anti-government extremist Larry Steven McQuilliams set a fire at the Mexican Consulate and shot towards several government buildings. Police arrived on scene and shot him dead. McQuilliams had a prior criminal history including drug possession and robbery.

2014 December: “The Guardians of Peace” linked by the United States to North Korea launched a cyber attack against SONY pictures. Embarrassing private emails were published and the organization threatened attacks against theaters that showed The Interview a satire which depicted the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Following the refusal of theater chains to show the movie, SONY Pictures withdrew release of the movie, a decision that was criticized by President Obama and others. Obama said the USA will respond. North Korea denied responsibility for the attack and proposed a joint investigation with the U.S.[85][86][87]

2014 December 20: Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a reported gang member, allegedly assassinated New York City police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in theBedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Brinsley was reported to have walked up and fired directly into the officers squad car. Other officers chased the suspect into a nearby subway station, where Brinsley fatally shot himself in the head. Prior to the shooting, Brinsley had written Instagram messages calling for revenge attacks in response to the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. He also allegedly shot his girlfriend in Maryland earlier that day.[88][89]

1927: The Ku Klux Klan launched a wave of political terror in Alabama, attempting to undermine African American rights.

1951 December 25: Harry T. Moore state co-coordinator of the Florida NAACP and his wife were killed by dynamite bomb in his Mims, Florida home. Despite extensive FBI investigation no one was arrested but Orlando KKK suspected.[11][12]

March 25, 1965: The Ku Klux Klan murdered Viola Liuzzo, a Southern-raised white mother of five who was visiting Alabama from her home in Detroit to attend acivil rights march. At the time of her murder, Liuzzo was transporting Civil Rights Marchers.

March 20, 1981: Michael Donald was randomly selected to be lynched by two Ku Klux Klan members near his Alabama home. He was beaten, had his throat slit, and was hanged.

White supremacy

1951 Wave of hate related terrorist attacks in Florida. Blacks dragged and beaten to death, 11 race related bombings, dynamiting of synagogues and a Jewish School in Miami and explosives found outside of Catholic Churches in Miami.[11][12]

1984 July 18: Alan Berg, Jewish lawyer-talk show host was shot and killed in the driveway of his home on Capitol Hill, Denver, Colorado, by members of a White Nationalist group called The Order. Berg had stridently argued with a member of the group on the show earlier who was convicted in his murder.

2015 June 17: Charleston church shooting a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States. The church is one of the United States’ oldest black churches and has long been a site for community organization around civil rights. Nine people were killed, including the senior pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator. A tenth victim was also shot, but survived. The FBI has not classified the act as terrorism, which was met with controversy.

2002 May: Lucas John Helder rigged pipe bombs in private mailboxes to explode when the boxes were opened. He injured 6 people in Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Iowa. His motivation was to garner media attention so that he could spread a message denouncing government control over daily lives and the illegality of marijuana, as well as promote astral projection.

2014 June 8: Two Las Vegas police officers while eating pizza in a restaurant and one civilian were shot to death allegedly by Jerad and Amanda Miller a married couple in a suicide attack. A Gadsden flag, swastika and a note promising “revolution,” was placed on the deceased officers bodies. The couple were thrown out a patriot group defending rancher Cliven Bundy[107][108]

2014 September 16- Eric Matthew Frein described as a survivalist is alleged to have killed a Pennsylvania State trooper and critically wounded another at theBlooming Grove barracks. Life was disrupted in the region during the ensuing manhunt. On October 30 Frein was captured near an abandoned airport hangar and was shackled with the handcuff belonging to the trooper he is accused of killing. Prosecutors said they would pursue the death penalty.[109][110]

1996–98: anti-abortion extremist Eric Rudolph cited biblical passages as his motivation for a series of bombings, including Atlanta’s Olympic Centennial Park, aLesbian bar, and several abortion clinics. Rudolph acknowledges his attacks were religiously motivated, but denies that his brief association with the racistChristian Identity movement was a motivation for his attacks.

1998: James Kopp killed at least one and went on a series of anti-abortion shooting sprees, both in the U.S. and Canada.

Islamic extremism

Between 1993 and 2001, the major attacks or attempts against US interests stemmed from militant Islamic jihad extremism except for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.[197] In 2001 nearly 3,000 people were killed in the September 11 attacks organised by al-Qaeda and largely perpetrated by Saudi nationals, sparking the War on Terror. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden considers homegrown terrorism to be the most dangerous threat and concern faced by American citizens today.[198] As of July 2011, there have been 52 homegrown jihadist extremist plots or attacks in the United States since the September 11 attacks.[199]

2013 April 15: Boston Marathon bombings: Two bombs detonated within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing 3 and injuring more than 180 people.[72][73] Late in the evening of April 18 in Cambridge, Massachusetts an MIT campus police officer was shot and killed while sitting in his squad car. Two suspects then carjacked an SUV and fled to nearby Watertown, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. A massive police chase ensued, resulting in a shootout during which several IED’s were thrown by the suspects. A Boston transit police officer was critically wounded and suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Russian immigrant of Chechen ethnicity, was killed. The second suspect, Tsarnaev’s younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, escaped. A “Shelter in place” order was given for Boston, Watertown, and the surrounding areas while house-to-house searches were conducted, but the suspect remained at large. Shortly after the search was called off Tsarnaev was discovered by a local resident hiding inside a boat parked in the resident’s driveway less than three blocks from the scene of the shootout. He was taken into custody after another exchange of gunfire and taken to nearby Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where he was treated for injuries received during his pursuit and capture. Tsarnaev was arraigned on federal terrorism charges from his hospital bed on April 22, 2013.[74][75][76][77] Preliminary questioning indicated the Tsarnaev brothers had no ties to terrorist organizations.[78] A note written by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the boat where he was captured said the bombings were retaliation for US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan against Muslims.[79] On April 8, 2015 Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on all 30 counts related to the bombing and shootout with police. The death penalty phase of the trail is scheduled to follow.[80]

2015 May 3: Garland, Texas. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi roommates from North Phoenix, Arizona killed by a security guard when they started shooting at a building holding a Mohammad cartoon contest sponsored by Stop Islamization of America. A school security helping with security at the event was shot in the leg.[151]

1974 June 13: The 29th floor of the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was bombed with dynamite at 9:41 pm resulting in no injuries. The radical leftist group Weatherman took credit, but no suspects have ever been identified.[23]

Black militancy

1970 October 22: An antipersonnel time bomb explodes outside a San Francisco church, showering steel shrapnel on mourners of a patrolman slain in a bank holdup; no one is injured. The Black Liberation Army is suspected.[112]

1971: During this year the Black Liberation Army is suspected of killing three policemen one at his desk in San Francisco, shooting four others and opening fire on three patrol cars and rolling a grenade which heavily damages a police car and injures two officers. An attempt is made to bomb a police station. These incidents happen in various cities around the country. In August the group runs a one-month-long guerrilla warfare school in Fayetteville, Georgia. Seven are arrested in January 2007 in connection with the San Francisco desk shooting incident.[112][113]

1972 January 22: Two St. Louis policemen, Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie, are shot in the back by at least three persons; four suspects in the case are members of the Black Liberation Army; one suspect is later killed in a street battle with police; the recovered pistol matches Laurie’s.[112]

1972 December 28: A Brooklyn, New York bartender is held for $12000 ransom by the Black Liberation Army.[112]

1973 January 7: After shooting a police officer a week earlier Mark Essex a former Black Panther party member shoots nineteen people, ten of them police officers, in retaliation for police killings in and around a Howard Johnson’s hotel in New Orleans. He also set fires in the hotel before being killed by police.

1973: A New York City transit detective is killed and ten law enforcement personnel are shot four by machine gun during the year mostly in and around New York City by the Black Liberation Army. Also two members of that organization are arrested with a car full of explosives. In the next few years there are a number of violent incidents involving this organization but they are more criminal in nature.[112]

1975 January 24: FALN bombs Fraunces Tavern in New York City, killing four and injuring more than 50.

1975 December 29: A bomb set off by FALN in East Harlem, New York, permanently disables a police officer while causing him to lose an eye.

1977 August 3: FALN bombs exploded on the twenty-first floor of 342 Madison Avenue in New York City, which housed United States Department of Defensesecurity personnel, as well as the Mobil Building at 150 East Forty-Second Street, killing one. In addition the group warned that bombs were located in thirteen other buildings, including the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center resulting in the evacuation of one hundred thousand people. Five days later a bomb attributed to the group was found in the AMEX building.[114]

May 3, 1979: FALN exploded a bomb outside of the Shubert Theatre in Chicago, injuring five people.

1980 March 15 Armed members of FALN raided the campaign headquarters of President Jimmy Carter in Chicago and the campaign headquarters of George H. W. Bush in New York City. Seven people in Chicago and ten people in New York were tied up as the offices were vandalized before the FALN members fled. A few days later, Carter delegates in Chicago received threatening letters from FALN.

1981 May 16: One was killed in an explosion in the toilets at the Pan Am terminal at New York’s JFK airport. The bombing is claimed by the Puerto Rican Resistance Army.[115]

Failed attacks

1864 November 25: Confederate Army of Manhattan Fires were set at 19 New York City hotels, P.T. Barnum‘s Museum, and 2 hay barges resulting in minor damage. Plot to burn down New York City organized by Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Robert Martin failed because the Greek fire incendiary devices were defective and the Lincoln Administration had been tipped off by a double agent and intercepted telegraph messages. After the conspirators found out the plot had been discovered they escaped to Canada. Confederate Captain Robert C. Kennedy became the only conspirator apprehended when he was arrested following his return to the U.S. Kennedy was tried by a military tribunal and hanged.[118][119]

1920 September 16: The Wall Street bombing: A suspected attempt to kill financier J.P. Morgan by exploding the first car bomb. Bomb was created by putting scrap metal and 100 pounds of dynamite on a horse-drawn cart and blowing it up on Wall Street. Morgan was out of town but 38 people were killed. Responsibility for the attack has never been firmly established.[120]

1970 March 6 Three members of the Weather Underground are killed when their “bomb factory” located in New York’s Greenwich Village accidentally explodes. WUO members Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins die in this accident. The bomb was intended to be planted at a non-commissioned officer’s dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The bomb was packed with nails to inflict maximum casualties upon detonation. See Greenwich Village townhouse explosion.

1971 April Pipe bombs found at the embassies of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in Washington, D.C.[123]

1972 Two Jewish Defense League members were arrested and charged with bomb possession and burglary in a conspiracy to blow up the Long Islandresidence of the Soviet mission to the United Nations

1972 March 7 4.5 pounds of C-4 explosives found on a plane by New York City Police Bomb Squad.

1975 September 22: Sarah Jane Moore tries to assassinate President Gerald Ford outside of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The attempt fails when a bystander grabs her arm and deflects the shot. Moore has stated the motive was to create chaos to bring “the winds of change” because the government had declared war on the left wing.[126][127][128]

March 1995: Charles Ray Polk is arrested while attempting to buy a quantity of plastic explosives and machine guns in order to assassinate four police officers and a female judge, and to use in a planned bombing of the IRS offices in Tyler, Texas.[132]

April 1996: Anti-government activist & survivalist Ray Hamblin is arrested after authorities find 460 pounds of the high explosive Tovex, 746 pounds of ANFOblasting agent, and 15 homemade hand grenades on his property in Hood River, Oregon during an investigation into a series of explosions in his storage sheds.[135]

July 1996: Washington State Militia leader John Pitner and seven others are arrested on weapons and explosives charges in connection with a plot to build pipe bombs for a confrontation with the federal government. Pitner and four others will be convicted on weapons charges, while conspiracy charges against all eight will end in a mistrial.[137] Pitner will later be retried on that charge, convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.[138]

1997 March 17: anti-abortion extremist Peter Howard puts 13 gas cans and three propane tanks in his truck, and drives it through the door of a California women’s clinic in a failed attempt to fire bomb the clinic.[140]

September 1999: anti-abortion extremist Clayton Lee Waagner was pulled over by the Pennsylvania State Police, but fled into the woods and evaded capture, leaving behind a stolen car that contained firearms, explosives, fake ID, and a list of abortion clinics. Later in September 1999, while on a self-described “Mission from God”, he took his wife and their nine children on a cross-country road trip headed west in a stolen Winnebago, planning to murder various abortion doctors, beginning with one in Seattle, Washington. However, after crossing into Illinois his vehicle broke down, and Waagner was arrested when Illinois State Policestopped to investigate. Waagner was convicted on charges of interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle and for being a convicted felon in possession offirearms. Waagner later escaped and used a cross country crime spree to continue to fund his anti-abortion mission.

2001 December 22: British citizen and self-proclaimed Al Qaeda member Richard Reid attempted to detonate the C-4 explosive PETN concealed in his shoeswhile on a flight from Paris to Miami. He was subdued by crew and passengers with the plane landing safely in Boston.

June 2006: The Animal Liberation Front targets UCLA professor Lynn Fairbanks with a firebomb due to her research on animals. The bomb was placed on the doorstep of a house occupied by her neighbor and a tenant. According to the FBI, the device was lit but failed to ignite and was powerful enough to have killed the occupants.

2006 September 11: A man rammed his car into a women’s clinic that he thought was an abortion clinic and set it ablaze in Davenport, Iowa causing $20,000 worth of damage to the building.[141]

2009 December 25: British and Nigerian citizen and self-described Al-Qaeda member Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in flight over Detroit by igniting his underpants which were filled with the C-4 explosive PETN.[144][145] He has been indicted in a U.S. federal court; charges include the attempted murder of 289 people.[146] Several days later, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen and Saudi Arabia claimed responsibility for the attempted attack. Addressing America, the group threatened to “come for you to slaughter.”[147] On January 24, 2010 an audio tape that US intelligence believes is authentic was broadcast in which Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing. The intelligence officials expressed doubt about the veracity of bin Laden’s claim.[148] On October 12, 2011 Abdulmutallab plead guilty to all counts against him and read a statement to the court saying “I attempted to use an explosive device which in the U.S. law is a weapon of mass destruction, which I call a blessed weapon to save the lives of innocent Muslims, for U.S. use of weapons of mass destruction on Muslim populations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and beyond”.[149]

2010 May 1 2010 Times Square car bomb attempt and plot: An attempted evening car bombing in crowded Times Square in New York City failed when a street vendor saw smoke emanating from an SUV and called police. The White House has blamed Tehrik-e-Taliban the Pakistani Taliban for the failed attack and saidFaisal Shahzad aged 30, an American of Pakistani origin who has been arrested in relation to the incident was working for the group.[150] In July 2010, the Pakistani Taliban released a video featuring Shahzad in which he urged other Muslims in the West to follow his example and to wage similar attacks.[151] On May 3, Shahzad was arrested at Kennedy Airport as he was preparing to fly to Dubai.[152] The device was described as crude and amateurish but potent enough to cause casualties.[153] On May 13 the F.B.I. raided several locations in the Northeast and arrested 3 on alleged immigration violations.[154] Several suspects were arrested in Pakistan including the co-owner of a prominent catering firm used by the US embassy.[155] On June 21 Shahzad plead guilty to 10 counts saying he created the bomb to force the US military to withdraw troops and stop drone attacks in a number of Muslim countries. Shahzad said he chose the location to cause mass civilian casualties because the civilians elected the government that carried out the allegedly anti Muslim policies.[156] On October 4, 2010 Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison.[157] During his sentencing, he threatened that “the defeat of the U.S. is imminent” and that “we will keep on terrorizing you until you leave our lands.”[151] Shahzad planned on detonating a second bomb in Times Square two weeks later.[158]

2013 April 8: Letters believed to contain the poison Ricin were sent to President Barack Obama and Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker and a Mississippi Justice official. Tests on the granular substance found in the letters tested positive for “low grade” ricin.

2015 January 15: Washington, DC. U.S. Capitol Terror Attack Stopped By FBI. Investigators say a 20-year-old Ohio man now in FBI custody wanted to set off pipe bombs at the U.S. Capitol as a way of supporting ISIS. Federal authorities identified the man as Christopher Lee Cornell, also known as Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah. Cornell, who lives in the Cincinnati area, allegedly told an FBI informant they should “wage jihad,” and showed his plans for bombing the Capitol and shooting people, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. The FBI said Cornell expressed his desire to support the Islamic State.[164] Authorities say Cornell was arrested Wednesday after buying two semi-automatic rifles and about 600 rounds of ammunition, but an FBI agent says the public was never in danger.

2015 May 3: Garland, Texas. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi roommates from North Phoenix, Arizona killed by a security guard when they started shooting at a building holding a Mohammad cartoon contest sponsored by Stop Islamization of America. A school security helping with security at the event was shot in the leg.[165]

Alleged and proven plots

1864 November: Plan by Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Robert Martin and the Copperheads organization Sons of Liberty to attack New York City and disrupt elections collapsed when the Sons of Liberty backed out upon seeing large numbers of Union troops.[118]

1865 February 28 Dahlgren Affair: Alleged plot by Union General Judson Kilpatrick to burn down Richmond, Virginia and kill Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet. Allegations based on papers recovered by a 13-year-old member of the Confederate home guard. The authenticity of the papers have been a matter of dispute.[166]

1940 January: The FBI shuts down the Christian Front after discovering its members were arming themselves for a plot to “murder Jews, communists, and ‘a dozen Congressmen'” and establishing a government modeled after Nazi Germany.[167][168]

1943 March 31: Clarence Cull arrested and charged with attempting to assassinate President Franklin D. Roosevelt by suicide bombing. Cull blamed Roosevelt for lost convoys of Merchant Ships.

1996 January 1: Members of the Viper Team militia are arrested after they caught surveying government buildings in Arizona.[169]

1996 July 13: John J. Ford, 47, of Bellport, Long Island, a former court officer and president of the Long Island U.F.O. Network, and Joseph Mazzachelli plotted to poison local politicians with radium and shoot them if that did not work. They believed the government was covering up knowledge of UFO landings.[171][172]

1997 July 4: Members of the splinter militia group the Third Continental Congress are arrested while planning attacks on military bases which they believed were being used to train United Nations troops to attack U.S. citizens.[169]

1997 July 30 Two men who were planning to bomb the New York City subway the next day arrested. A resident of their apartment informed police after he overheard the men discussing the plot.[173]

1998 March 18: Members of the North American Militia are arrested in plot to bomb Federal Buildings in Michigan, a television station and an interstate highway intersection.[169]

1999 December 5: Members of the San Joaquin Militia are arrested on charges of plotting to bomb critical infrastructure locations in hopes of sparking an insurrection. The leaders of the group plead guilty to charges of plotting to kill a Federal judge.[169]

1999 December 8: The leader of the Southeastern States Alliance militia group is arrested in plot to bomb energy faculties with the goal of causing power outages in Florida and Georgia.[169]

2000 March 9: The former leader of the Texas Militia is arrested in a plot to attack the Federal Building in Houston.[169]

2002 February 8: Two members of Project 7 are arrested plotting to kill judges and law enforcement officials in order to kick off a revolution.[169]

2003 April 24: William Krar is charged for his part in the Tyler poison gas plot, a white supremacist related plan. A sodium cyanide bomb was seized with at least 100 other bombs, bomb components, machine guns, and 500,000 rounds of ammunition. He faces up to 10 years in prison.[175][176]

2003 May 1: Iyman Faris pleads guilty to providing material support to al-Qaeda and plotting to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting through cables with blowtorches. He had been working as a double for the FBI since March, but in October was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

2005 August 31 2005 Los Angeles bomb plot: Kevin James, Hammad Samana, Gregory Patterson, and Levar Washington were indicted on charges to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism in California. The men planned attacks against Jewish institutions and American military locations in Los Angeles during the Yom Kippur holiday.[177]

2006 February 21: The Toledo terror plot where three men were accused of conspiring to wage a “holy war” against the United States, supply help to the terrorist in Iraq, and threatening to kill the US president.

2006 June 23: The Miami bomb plot to attack the Sears Tower where seven men were arrested after an FBI agent infiltrated a group while posing as an al-Qaeda member. No weapons or other materials were found. On May 12, 2009 after two mistrials due to hung juries five men were convicted and one acquitted on charges related to the plot. Narseal Batiste, the groups ringleader, was convicted on four charges, the only defendant to be convicted on all four charges brought against the defendants.[178]

2007 March 5 A Rikers Island inmate offered to pay an undercover police officer posing as a hit man to behead New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly and bomb police headquarters in retaliation for the controversial police shooting of Sean Bell. The suspect wanted the bombing to be considered a terrorist act.[181][182]

2007 May 1: Five members of a self-styled Birmingham, Alabama area anti-immigration militia were arrested for planning a machine gun attack on Mexicans.[183]

2007 May 7: Fort Dix attack plot. Six men inspired by Jihadist videos arrested in a failed homegrown terrorism plot to kill soldiers. Plot unravels when Circuit Cityclerk becomes suspicious of the DVDs the men had created and report it to authorities who place an informant in the group. In October 2008 one man pleaded guilty to charges related to the plot. On December 22, 2008 five other men were convicted with conspiracy to kill American soldiers but were acquitted of attempted murder.[184] Dritan, Shain and Eljvir Duka were sentenced to life in prison.[185]

2007 June 3: John F. Kennedy International Airport terror plot. Four men indicted in plot to blow up jet-fuel supply tanks at JFK Airport and a 40-mile (64 km) connecting pipeline. One suspect is a U.S. citizen and one, Abdul Kadir, a former member of parliament in Guyana. The airport was targeted because one of the suspects saw arms shipments and missiles being shipped to Israel from that locale. In a recorded conversation one of the suspects allegedly told an informant that “Anytime you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States. To hit John F. Kennedy, wow…. They love JFK – he’s like the man”. Plot unraveled when a person from law enforcement was recruited.[186][187][188] On June 29, 2010 Abdel Nur plead guilty to material support charges. Due to health reasons Kareem Ibrahim was removed from the case and will be tried separately.[189] On August 2 Russell M. Defreitas and Abdul Kadir were convicted for their role in the plot.[190]

2008 March 26: Michael S. Gorbey who was detained in January 2008 for carrying a loaded shotgun two blocks from the Capitol Building has been charged planning to set off a bomb after a device containing can of gunpowder duct-taped to a box of shotgun shells and a bottle containing buckshot or BB pellets was found in the pickup truck he was driving. The pickup truck was moved to a government parking lot where for a three-week period the device inside it went unnoticed.[191] Michael Gorbey gets 22 years prison, but he insisted that police planted weapons.[192]

2009 September New York City Subway and United Kingdom plot: Najibullah Zazi of Denver was indicted on charges of trying to build and detonate a weapon of mass destruction by purchasing hydrogen peroxide, acetone and other chemicals. He and two others allegedly planned to detonate the homemade explosives on the New York City subway system.[201] On February 22, 2010 Zazi plead guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization. Zazi said he was recruited by al-Qaeda as part of a “martyrdom plan”.[202]Zazi agreed to cooperate with authorities and has told them that the groups planned to walk into the Times Square and Grand Central stations with backpack bombs at rush hour and then choose which subway lines to attack.[203] Several days later Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay high school classmates of Zazi were indicted and plead not guilty to charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization.[204] On April 12 a fourth man was arrested in Pakistan.[203] On April 23 Prosecutors said that two Senior Al Queda officials who were reportedly later killed in drone attacks ordered the attacks and Zarein Ahmedzay pled guilty to plot related charges.[205] On July 7 five others were indicted including al-Qaeda leader Adnan Shukrijumah, and it was alleged the United Kingdom was also a target of the plot.[206] While in Pakistan, Zazi, Ahmedzay and Medunjanin were allegedly recruited and directed by Shukrijumah, a former Florida student who is designated as one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists, to conduct a terrorist attack in the U.S.[207] On August 6 new charges were brought against Medunjanin and 4 others including Shukrijumah. Medunjanin pled not guilty.[208]

2009 August – September: On September 24 William Boyd and Hysen Sherifi charged with “conducting reconnaissance of the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia and obtaining armor-piercing ammunition with the intent to attack Americans”. Boyd, two of his sons and several other suspects had been charged on international terrorism charges in August, but at the time there was no indication that they wanted to plot a United States attack. An audio tape of Boyd decrying the U.S. military, discussing the honor of martyrdom, and bemoaning the struggle of Muslims was played at an August hearing. It is the first case of a ring ofhomegrown terrorists having specific targets.[209][210]

2010 May Paul Rockwood Jr. a meteorologist who took official weather observations and his pregnant wife Nancy from King Salmon, Alaska compiled a list of 20 targets, including members of the military and media and had moved to the operational phase of their plan plead guilty to lying to FBI about the list and making false statements to the FBI. Under a plea agreement Mr. Rockwood will serve eight years in prison and three years probation while Ms. Rockwood will serve probation. Motive was revenge for alleged descecration of Islam.[214][215]

2010 September 20: Sami Samir Hassoun, 22, a Lebanese citizen living in Chicago, was charged with one count each of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted use of an explosive device after placing a backpack with what he thought was a bomb near Wrigley Field. Alleged plot was foiled by FBI informant. Hassoun discussed other ideas for mass destruction attacks with informant.[216][217]

2010 December 8: Antonio Martinez, also known as Muhammad Hussain arrested after a sting operation in an alleged plot to bomb a military recruiting center inCatonsville, Maryland. The 21-year-old suspect is an American who converted to Islam. The suspect was reported to be upset that the military continues to kill Muslims.[222]

2010 December 21: Internet radio broadcaster Hal Turner sentenced to 33 months in prison after he published the work addresses and photographs of three judges who had upheld gun control laws and advocated for their assassination.[223]

2011 February 24: Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari a 20-year-old Saudi Arabian student arrested for building bombs to use in alleged terrorist attacks. Targets allegedly were home of George W. Bush, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, nightclubs and the homes of soldiers who were formerly stationed at the Abu Ghraib prison. In Aldawsari’s journal he wrote he was inspired by the speeches of Osama bin Laden. Alleged plot uncovered when supplier noticed suspicious purchases.[224]

2011 May 11: In the 2011 Manhattan terrorism plot, Ahmed Ferhani resident of Queens, New York and native of Algeria and Mohamed Mamdouh aged 20 also from Queens and Moroccan native arrested in a lone wolf plot against a New York Synagogue that had yet to be chosen. It also alleged that they hoped to attack the Empire State Building. The pair were arrested after buying two Browning semi-automatic pistols, one Smith & Wesson revolver, ammunition and one grenade. The pair disguised themselves as Jewish temple goers and pretended to pray. The suspects were said to be “committed to violent jihad“.[225]

2011 June 23: Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh of Long Beach, California are arrested on charges of buying machine guns and grenades and conspiring to attack a federal building housing a Military Entrance Processing Station in Seattle, Washington.Plot was uncovered by informent. Motive was to send message in protest of US action abroad. On April 8, 2013 Walli Mujahidh apologized and was sentenced to 17 years for his role in the plot.[226][227]

2011 July 27: AWOL U.S. Army Private, and conscientious objector, Naser Jason Abdo from Garland, Texas was arrested in an alleged plot against Fort Hood, Texas. Materials for up to two bombs were found with jihadist materials in Abdo’s motel room. Investigation began when owner of a local gun store called police after becoming suspicious when Abdo asked questions indicating he did not know about the items he was purchasing.[228][229]

2011 September 28: Rezwan Ferdaus, a US citizen,was indicted for allegedly plotting to use remote-controlled aircraft carrying explosives to bomb the Pentagon and the US Capitol. He also allegedly planned to hire people to shoot at people fleeing the Pentagon. Ferdaus was said to be motivated by Al Queada videos and the alleged plot was uncovered by an F.B.I. sting operation.[230] In July 2012 he pleaded guilty to plotting an attack on the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Under a plea bargain, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison and then 10 years of supervised release.[231]

2011 October 11: Operation Red Coalition. Alleged plot that was “conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran” to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir with a bomb and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. It is not known if Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had knowledge of the plot. The alleged plot was disrupted by an FBI and DEA investigation. The investigation began in May 2011 when an Iranian-American approached a DEA informant seeking the help of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Iran has denied the allegations.[232]

2011 October–November: Georgia terrorist plot Four elderly men from a Georgia militia arrested for plotting to buy ricin in preparation for an attack they claimed would “save the Constitution”. They allegedly discussed blowing up IRS and ATF buildings, dispensing ricin from a plane over Atlanta and other cities, and assassinating “un American” politicians. Informant used to break up alleged plot.[233]

2011 November 20: Jose Pimentel aged 27 an American citizen and a convert to Islam from New York City arrested and accused of being the process of building pipe bombs (and one hour away from his building his first bomb) to target post offices police cars and U.S. military personnel returning from abroad in New York City and Bayonne, New Jersey. Was said to be a follower of the late al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. The FBI did not consider Pimentel who was said to be radicalized via the internet by enough of a threat to investigate but NYC police considered him a 2 on a threat scale of 1 to 5.[234][235][236]

2012 January 7: Sami Osmakac a naturalized American from Kosovo arrested in plot to create mayhem in Tampa, Florida by car bombing, hostage taking and exploding a suicide belt. Allege bomb targets included by night clubs in the Ybor City, a bar, and the operations center of the sheriff’s office and South Tampabusinesses. Osmakac allegedly told an FBI undercover agent “We all have to die, so why not die the Islamic way?”. Osmakac plead not guilty on February 8.[237]

2012 February 17: Amine El Khalifi a Moroccan man from Alexandria, Virginia arrested in alleged suicide bombing plot of U.S. Capital. Was arrested was a result of F.B.I. sting operation.[238] As a result of a plea agreement El Khalifi was sentenced to 30 years in prison on September 14.[239]

2012 May 1: 5 self described anarchists were arrested in an alleged plot to blow up a bridge in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Brecksville, Ohio. The group was being monitored as part of an F.B.I. undercover operation and had considered other plots previously. One of the suspects expressed a desire to cause financial damage to companies while avoiding casualties.[240][241]

2012 August 27: Four non-commissioned officers from Fort Stewart in Georgia, along with five other men, were charged in an alleged plot to poison an apple orchard and blow up a dam in Washington State, seize control of Fort Stewart, set off explosives in a park in Savannah, Georgia, and assassinate President Barack Obama. The alleged plot was on behalf of the “FEAR” militia for the long term purpose of overthrowing the government.[242][243]

2012 October 17: Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis age 21 arrested in plot to bomb the Manhattan office of the Federal Reserve Bank on behalf of “our beloved Sheikh Osama bin Laden”. Motive was to destroy the economy and possibly force cancellation of the Presidential election. Suspect who has a student visa is a Bangladeshi national who come to the U.S. to launch a terrorist attack. Arrest was result a joint FBI-New York City police sting operation. Suspect was pulling detonator on disabled 1000 pound van bomb when arrested.[244] On August 9, 2013 Nafis was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Prior to his sentencing Nafis wrote a letter apologizing to the people of America and New York for his actions which he said were caused by personal and family problems and said he is now pro American.[245][246]

2012 November 29 Raees Alam Qazi and his brother Sheheryar Alam Qazi of Florida naturalized citizens of Pakistani descent arrested for being in the aspirational stages of a plot to attack New York City. Raees Alam Qazi is alleged be inspired by Al Queda and of trying to contact terrorists abroad.[247] On June 11, 2015 Reees and Sheheryar were sentenced to 35 and 20 years respectively for the plot and attacking federal officials while in custody.[248]

2013 June 19 Two middle aged upstate New York men Scott Crawford and Eric J. Feight arrested by FBI in alleged plot to target a political figure reported to be President Obama and a Muslim group deemed enemies of Israel by constructing and using an X-Ray Gun that was described by the FBI as “useful and “functional”. Obama was believed by the pair to be allowing Muslims into the country without background checks. Investigation was launched when a synagogue and the Ku Klux Klan whom Crawford was a member of told authorities that Crawford tried to recruit them to take part in the alleged plot.[249]

2015 March 26 Hasan R. Edmonds an Illinois National Guardsman and his cousin Jonas M. Edmonds arrested in an alleged terrorist plot against a Northern Illinois military base. The alleged plot involved Hasan leaving the country and Jones using Hasan’s uniform to gain access. Motive was to bring “the flames of war to the heart” of America. Alleged plot broken up by sting operation.[255]

2015 April 2 Two women from Queens, New York 28-year-old Noelle Velentzas and 31-year-old Asia Siddiqui arrested on charges of trying to detonate explosives in the US. They had purchased propane tanks. It is believed to be first case of a women only conceived terror plot in the US. Suspected busted by sting operation. Siddiqui alleged to have Al Quaeda contact.[256] On May 7 the two plead not guilty.[257]

2015 April 10 the FBI arrested Robert Rankin Doggart, a 63-year-old Tennessee man who ran as a congressional candidate in 2014. He was wiretapped explaining plans to raise a militia to burn down a mosque, school and cafeteria and gun down Muslims in an enclave called Islamberg in New York. He planned to amass M4 carbines, pistols, Molotov cocktails and machetes, saying “We will offer [our] lives as collateral to prove our commitment to our God,” and “We shall be Warriors who inflict horrible numbers of casualties upon the enemies,” and “If it gets down to the machete, we will cut them to shreds.”[258] He has a Ph.D. from a diploma mill and an ordination from an ordination mill.[259]

2015 May 15 Robert Doggart of Signal Mountain, Tennessee and a former candidate for the 4th Congressional District plead guilty to interstate communication of threats after confessing to plotting to firebomb a school, a mosque and a cafeteria in a Muslim community in upstate, New York.[260]

2015 June 15, 17 Fareed Mumuni of Staten Island and Munther Omar Saleh of Queens arrested for allegedly trying to conspire to assist ISIS in committing an attack in the New York area. Both suspects allegedly charged at law enforcement trying to arrest them with a knife.[261]

2015 July 13 Alexander Ciccolo, 23, of Adams, Massachusetts a son of a Boston police captain arrested in plot to attack a state college and broadcast executions of students on the internet. Suspect who was turned in by his father is said to be inspired by ISIS and reportedly characterized America as “Satan” and “disgusting”. Ciccolo has guns and possible bomb making equipment.[263]

Story 1: When Will Obama and Kerry Walk Like Men Out Of Negotiations With The World Leading Terrorist Nation The Islamic Republic of Iran? Never! — Yakety Yak– Where Is The Written Signed Agreement/Treaty Stopping Iran From Having Nuclear Weapons President Obama? — Time To Release Some Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) — Bunker Busters on Iran’s Nuclear Bomb Factories — Bombs Away — Videos

Divine – Walk Like A Man (1985) HQ

Walk Like a Man – The Four Seasons

“Walk Like A Man”

oo woo-oo-oo oo woo-oo-oo
(Wop wop wop wop)
oo woo-oo-oo oo woo-oo-oo
Walk like a manOh how you tried
To cut me down to size
by telling dirty lies to my friends
But my own father
Said give her up, don’t bother
The world isn’t coming to an endHe said walk like a man
Talk like a man
Walk like a man my son
No woman’s worth
Crawling on the earth
So walk like a man my sonoo woo-oo-oo oo woo-oo-oo
(Wop wop wop wop)
oo woo-oo-oo oo woo-oo-ooFine eyed baby
I don’t mean maybe
We’re gonna get along somehow
Soon you’ll be crying
On ‘count of all you’re lying
Oh yeah, just look who’s laughing nowI’m gonna walk like a man
Fast as I can
Walk like a man from you
I’ll tell the world
Forget about it girl
And walk like a man from youoo woo-oo-oo oo woo-oo-oo
(Wop wop wop wop)
oo woo-oo-oo oo woo-oo-oo
(Wop wop wop wop)
oo woo-oo-oo oo woo-oo-oo
(Wop wop wop wop)
oo woo-oo-oo oo woo-oo-oo

Walk Like a Man Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons Lyrics

As negotiations with Iran continue towards a nuclear arms agreement, the United States still holds a trump card. The 30,000 Pound Boeing GBU-57 Bunker Buster bomb, the largest non-nuclear weapon in U.S. inventory, designed to destroy nuclear weapons bunkers in Iran and North Korea. The bunker buster, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), is 30,000 pounds (13,608 kg.) and has been improved with “adjusted fuses to maximize its burrowing power, upgraded guidance systems to improve its precision and hi-tech equipment intended to allow it to evade Iranian air defenses in order to reach and destroy the Fordow nuclear enrichment complex.”

“Hopefully we never have to use it, but if we had to, it would work.”

The existence of a bomb that has the capability of destroying the underground facility from the air could also give the West extra bargaining power in nuclear negotiations with the Iran.

US officials believe the improved MOP will serve to convince Israel to hold off on unilaterally attacking Iran and give Washington more time to diplomatically neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat.

US military chiefs openly admitted the weapon was built to attack the fortified nuclear facilities of “rogue states” such as Iran and North Korea. Although the Pentagon insists that it is not aimed at a specific threat, unnamed officials within the ministry have repeatedly claimed the bomb is being tailor-made to disable Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordo.

Yakety Yak – The Coasters with lyrics

Where Have all the Flowers Gone: Eve of Destruction

Iran Made Illegal Purchases of Nuclear Weapons Technology Last Month

The question is not whether Iran can be trusted to uphold the nuclear deal now being negotiated in Vienna (it can’t), but whether the Obama administration and its P5+1 partners can be trusted to punish Iran when it violates the agreement?

Experience shows that unless Iran violates the deal egregiously, the temptation will be to ignore it. For instance, Iran got away with selling more oil than it should have under the interim agreement. More ominously, Tehran repeatedly pushed the envelope on technical aspects of the agreement—such as caps on its uranium stockpile—and got away with it. The Obama administration and other Western powers have so much invested in their diplomatic efforts that they’ll deny such violations ever occurred.

More evidence of Iranian violations has now surfaced. Two reports regarding Iran’s attempts to illicitly and clandestinely procure technology for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs have recently been published. They show that Iran’s procurement continues apace, if not faster than before the Joint Plan of Action was signed in November 2013. But fear of potentially embarrassing negotiators and derailing negotiations has made some states reluctant to report Tehran’s illegal efforts. If these countries have hesitated to expose Iran during the negotiations, it is more likely they will refrain from reporting after a deal is struck.

The first report was released last month by the U.N. panel of experts in charge of reporting compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding Iran. The panel noted that U.N. member states had not reported significant violations of U.N. sanctions and speculated as to why: either Iran was complying, or countries did not wish to interfere with negotiations.

Paddle, pedal, jog or Segway through North America’s largest urban parkland—Edmonton’s river valley.

More by Benjamin Weinthal

The second report, released last week by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, is less ambiguous. The agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, confirmed to us that Iran continues to seek illicit technology for its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.

Iran has had a long history of trying to obtain nuclear technology from German companies, particularly by seeking ways to transport merchandise in circumvention of international sanctions. Since November 2013, Tehran has sought industry computers, high-speed cameras, cable fiber, and pumps for its nuclear and missile program. It appears that Iran’s readiness to negotiate does not reflect any substantive policy change. Rather, it is a diplomatic tactic retreat forced by economic distress, not a strategic rethinking of its priorities.

Iran’s cheating should give Western negotiators additional resolve to impose ironclad guarantees in the agreement. They should compel Iran to reveal its past activities, including its post-JPOA procurement efforts, and impose tough, intrusive, “anytime, anywhere” inspections before sanctions are suspended, let alone lifted.

Instead, the lack of reporting to the U.N. despite evidence of cheating suggests a lack of resolve on the part of Western nations, and their willingness to downplay all but the most egregious violations. This does not bode well for the future. If Western powers are reluctant to penalize Iran for trying to evade sanctions because they’re afraid of spoiling the negotiations, what will happen in the future when Western powers have even more invested in preserving an agreement?

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Benjamin Weinthal is a research fellow.

Development

In 2002, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin were working on the development of a 30,000-lb (13,600 kg) earth-penetrating weapon, said to be known as “Big BLU“. But funding and technical difficulties resulted in the development work being abandoned. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, analysis of sites that had been attacked with bunker-buster bombs revealed poor penetration and inadequate levels of destruction.[citation needed]This renewed interest in the development of a super-large bunker-buster, and the MOP project was initiated by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to fulfill a long-standing Air Force requirement.[3]

The U.S. Air Force has not officially recognized specific military requirement for an ultra-large bomb, but it does have a concept for a collection of massively sized penetrator and blast weapons, the so-called “Big BLU” collection, which includes the MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst) bomb. Development of the MOP was performed at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida with design and testing work performed by Boeing. It is intended that the bomb will be deployed on the B-2 bomber, and will be guided by the use of GPS.[4][5]

Northrop Grumman announced a $2.5-million stealth-bomber refit contract on 19 July 2007. Each of the U.S. Air Force’s B-2s is to be able to carry two 14-ton MOPs.[6][7]

On 6 October 2009, ABC News reported that the Pentagon had requested and obtained permission from the U.S. Congress to shift funding in order to accelerate the project.[8][9] It was later announced by the U.S. military that “funding delays and enhancements to the planned test schedule” meant the bomb would not be deployable until December 2010, six months later than the original availability date.[10]

The project has had at least one successful Flight Test MOP launch.[11] The final testing will be completed in 2012.[3]

The Air Force took delivery of 20 bombs, designed to be delivered by the B-2 bomber, in September 2011. In February 2012, Congress approved $81.6 million to further develop and improve the weapon.[12]

Recent development

On 14 November 2011, Bloomberg reported that the Air Force Global Strike Command started receiving the Massive Ordnance Penetrator and that the deliveries “will meet requirements for the current operational need”.[14] The Air Force now has received delivery of 16 MOPs as of November 2011.[15] And as of March 2012, there is an “operational stockpile” at Whiteman Air Force Base.[16]

In 2012, the Pentagon requested $82 million to develop greater penetration power for the existing weapon.[1] A 2013 report stated that the development had been a success,[17] and B-2 integration testing began that year.[18]

MOP being offloaded in preparation for its first explosive test, 2007.

Next-generation Penetrator Munition

On 25 June 2010, USAF Lt. Gen. Phillip Breedlove said that the Next-generation Penetrator Munition should be about a third the size of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator so it could be carried by affordable aircraft.[19] In December 2010, the USAF had a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the Next Generation Penetrator (NGP).[20]

Global Strike Command has indicated that one of the objectives for the Next-Generation Bomber is for it to carry a weapon with the effects of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. This would either be with the same weapon or a smaller weapon that uses rocket power to reach sufficient speed to match the penetrating power of the larger weapon.[21]

One of the current limitations of the MOP is that it lacks a void-sensing fuze and will therefore detonate after it has come to a stop, even if it passed by the target area.[22]

Timeline on Iran’s Nuclear Program

Whether Iran is racing toward nuclear weapon capabilities is one of the most contentious issues challenging the West, including the United States and Israel, which has been involved in a shadow war with the country.

April 2, 2015

1950s

April 2, 2015

Iran Agrees to Nuclear Limits, But Key Issues Are Unresolved

Iran and European nations say they have reached an understanding about next steps, but key issues need to be resolved before a final agreement by June 30.

According to European officials, roughly 5,000 centrifuges will remain spinning enriched uranium at Natanz, about half the number currently running. The underground enrichment site at Fordo — which Israeli and some American officials fear is impervious to bombing — will be partly converted to advanced nuclear research and the production of medical isotopes.

A major reactor at Arak, which officials fear could produce plutonium, will operate on a limited basis that will not provide enough fuel for a bomb.

In return the European Union and the United States will begin to lift sanctions, as Iran complies.

U.S. and Allies Extend Iran Nuclear Talks by 7 Months

A yearlong effort to reach an enduring accord with Iran to dismantle large parts of its nuclear infrastructure fell short, forcing the United States and its allies to declare a seven-month extension, but with no clear indication of how they plan to bridge fundamental differences.

The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, left, Catherine Ashton, who is representing the European Union, and Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna. Leonhard Foeger/Reuters

Negotiators Scrambling as Deadline Looms in Nuclear Talks

As six world powers and Iran race to meet a Monday deadline for an agreement that would constrain Iran’s nuclear program, the United States stakes out an ambitious goal for what an accord should accomplish.

American officials say the agreement should slow the Iranian nuclear program enough that it would take Iran at least a year to make enough material for a nuclear bomb if it decided to ignore the accord.

It has become increasingly unlikely that any accord announced on Monday would be a complete one. And whatever deal is reached, it may not matter if Iranian hard-liners have their way. In Iran, the final decision on a nuclear deal lies with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.

Role for Russia Gives Iran Talks a Possible Boost

Iran tentatively agrees to ship much of its huge stockpile of uranium to Russia for conversion into specialized fuel rods for the Bushehr nuclear power plant, Iran’s only commercial reactor. The agreement is potentially a major breakthrough in talks that have until now been deadlocked.

A key question remains about the negotiations that American officials have been loath to discuss in public: In a final deal, would Iran be required to publicly admit its past activities, or merely provide a mechanism for monitoring its actions in the future?

Iran’s nuclear reactor in Arak, about 150 miles southwest of Tehran, is being redesigned.Hamid Foroutan/Iranian Students News Agency, via Associated Press

Iran Altering Arak Reactor in Bid for Nuclear Deal

Atomic power engineers in Iran start redesigning a partly constructed reactor in Arak to limit the amount of plutonium it produces, Ali Akbar Salehi, the director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, says, expressing hope that the change will help alleviate Western objections that the plutonium can be used in weapons.

Iran Nuclear Talks Extended, Diplomats Say

Iran, the United States and the five other countries agree to a four-month extension of the negotiations, giving them more time to try to bridge a major difference over whether the country will be forced to dismantle parts of its nuclear infrastructure, according to senior Western diplomats involved in the talks.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, accuses the West of trying to sabotage a reactor being built near Arak.Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Iran Outlines Nuclear Deal; Accepts Limit

As the deadline for the talks approaches on Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, says the country could accept a freeze on its capacity to produce nuclear fuel at current levels for several years, provided it could eventually produce fuel unhindered.

The proposal will effectively extend a limited series of concessions Iran made last November as part of a temporary deal to get negotiations started on a permanent accord. In return, Iran wants step-by-step relief from sanctions that have substantially weakened its economy.

Iran Is Providing Information on Its Detonators, Report Says

The I.A.E.A. releases a report stating that Iran is beginning to turn over information related to its nuclear detonators. The agency says that Iran has provided “additional information and explanations,” including documents, to substantiate its claim that it had tested the detonators for “a civilian application.”

From left, Foreign Ministers Laurent Fabius of France and William Hague of Britain, and Secretary of State John Kerry with Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh of Jordan, in Paris. Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images

Negotiators Put Final Touches on Iran Accord

Iran and a group of six world powers complete a deal that will temporarily freeze much of Tehran’s nuclear program starting Jan. 20, in exchange for limited relief from Western economic sanctions.

The agreement faced opposition from Iranian hard-liners and Israeli leaders, as well as heavy criticism from some American lawmakers, who have threatened to approve further sanctions despite President Obama’s promise of a veto.

The negotiators in Geneva early Sunday morning. President Obama hailed the agreement. Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Deal With Iran Halts Nuclear Program

The United States and five other world powers announce a landmark accord that would temporarily freeze Iran’s nuclear program and lay the foundation for a more sweeping agreement.

The aim of the accord, which is to last six months, is to give international negotiators time to pursue a more comprehensive accord that would ratchet back much of Iran’s nuclear program and ensure that it could only be used for peaceful purposes.

Iran is in a much different position now to negotiate on its nuclear program than it was four years ago when President Obama first broached the subject.

Iran Says It Agrees to ‘Road Map’ With U.N. on Nuclear Inspections

The I.A.E.A. says that Iran has agreed to resolve all outstanding issues with the agency, and will permit “managed access” by international inspectors to two key nuclear facilities. But the promise does not extend to the Parchin military site, which inspectors have been trying to see for months.

Marathon talks between major powers and Iran fail to ease sanctions on the country and produce a deal to freeze its nuclear program.

Iran Talks Called Substantive

Iran and a group of six world powers say that they have engaged in “substantive” and “forward-looking” discussions on the disputed Iranian nuclear program and that they will reconvene on November 7.

The account of the two days of talks in Geneva came in a rare joint statement from Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief for the European Union, who is the lead negotiator with Iran.

First Direct US-Iran Talk Since 1979

President Obama says he has spoken by phone with President Hassan Rouhani, the first direct contact between the leaders of Iran and the United States since 1979. Mr. Obama, speaking in the White House briefing room, said the two leaders discussed Iran’s nuclear program and said he was persuaded there was a basis for an agreement.

Rouhani, Blunt and Charming, Pitches a Moderate Iran in First U.N. Appearance

Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, turns himself into a high-speed salesman offering a flurry of speeches, tweets, televised interviews and carefully curated private meetings, intended to end Iran’s economic isolation.

At the United Nations General Assembly, he preaches tolerance and understanding, decries as a form of violence the Western sanctions imposed on his country and says nuclear weapons have no place in its future. He takes aim at Israel’s nuclear arsenal in a public – while the country’s leaders caution over what they deem as an empty charm offensive.

Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s new leader, received a private letter from President Obama about easing tensions between the countries.Vahid Salemi/Associated Press

Iran Said to Seek a Nuclear Accord to End Sanctions

Seizing on a perceived flexibility in a letter from President Obama to President Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s leaders are focused on getting quick relief from crippling sanctions, a top adviser to the Iranian leadership says.

The adviser says that Mr. Obama’s letter, delivered about three weeks ago, promised relief from sanctions if Tehran demonstrated a willingness to “cooperate with the international community, keep your commitments and remove ambiguities.”

Iran Slows Its Gathering of Enriched Uranium, Report Says

I.A.E.A. inspectors say that Iran is slowing its accumulation of enriched uranium that can be quickly turned into fuel for an atomic bomb. The report’s disclosure is significant politically because it delays the day when Iran could breach what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel last fall called a “red line” beyond which Iran would not be allowed to pass — the point at which it has enough purified uranium to quickly make a single nuclear weapon.

Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, has been elected the next president of Iran.

Iran Elects New President

Voters overwhelmingly elect Hassan Rouhani, 64, a mild-mannered cleric who advocates greater personal freedoms and a more conciliatory approach to the world.

The diplomat sheik played a key role in Iran’s voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment in 2004, which Western powers responded to by asking for more concessions from Iran.

Mr. Rouhani replaces his predecessors’ foreign minister with Mohammad Javad Zarif, an American-educated diplomat known for his understanding of the West, and makes him responsible for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Mr. Rouhani also removes a hard-line nuclear scientists as head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, and replaces him with the former foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi. In September, Iran’s longtime ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency will be replaced as well.

U.S. Adds to Its List of Sanctions Against Iran

The Obama administration escalates sanctions against Iran for the fourth time in a week, blacklisting what it describes as a global network of front companies controlled by Iran’s top leaders, accusing them of hiding assets and generating billions of dollars worth of revenue to help Tehran evade sanctions.

The White House also accuses Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of personally directing an effort to bypass them.

The United States also blacklists Iranian petrochemical companies, its automotive industry and more than 50 Iranian officials, and threatens to sanction foreign banks that trade or hold Iran’s national currency, the rial.

Iran Is Seen Advancing Nuclear Bid

The I.A.E.A. says Iran has made significant progress across the board in its nuclear program, while negotiations with the West dragged on this spring. But it said that it has not gone past the “red line” that Israel’s leaders have declared could trigger military action.

In its last report before the Iranian elections next month, the agency also gives details that point to an emerging production strategy by the Iranians. One strategy involves speeding ahead with another potential route to a bomb: producing plutonium. The report indicates that Iran is making significant progress at its Arak complex, where it has built a heavy-water facility and is expected to have a reactor running by the end of next year.

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Those Aiding Iran

The United States expands its roster of those violating Iran sanctions, blacklisting four Iranian companies and one individual suspected of helping the country enrich nuclear fuel. It also singles out two other companies, including a Venezuelan-Iranian bank, accused of helping Iran evade other Western-imposed prohibitions on oil sales and financial dealings.

The penalties came a day after the Senate introduced legislation that could effectively deny the Iran government access to an estimated $100 billion worth of its own money parked in overseas banks, a step that proponents said could significantly damage Iran’s financial stability.

Fearing Price Increases, Iranians Hoard Goods

Iranians rush to supermarkets to buy cooking oil, red meat and other staples, stockpiling the goods over new fears of price spikes from a change in the official exchange rate that could severely reduce the already weakened purchasing power of the rial, the national currency.

Prices of staples are set to increase by as much as 60 percent because of the currency change.

Economists say the result is from a combination of severe Western sanctions and what many call the government’s economic mismanagement.

Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon. Next week he will travel to the Middle East to finalize the arms sale.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

U.S. Arms Deal With Israel and 2 Arab Nations Is Near

The Defense Department is expecting to finalize a $10 billion arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates next week that will provide missiles, warplanes and troop transports to help them counter any future threat from Iran.

Israeli Officials Stress Readiness for Lone Strike on Iran

In an interview with the BBC, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat, saying Israel has “different vulnerabilities and different capabilities” than the United States. “We have to make our own calculations, when we lose the capacity to defend ourselves by ourselves.”

Israeli defense and military officials have been issuing explicit warnings this week that Israel was prepared and had the capability to carry out a lone military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

US Blacklists an Iranian and Businesses Over Violation of Sanctions

The United States blacklists an affluent Iranian business executive, Babak Morteza Zanjani, and what it describes as his multibillion-dollar money laundering network, accusing them of selling oil for Iran in violation of the Western economic sanctions imposed over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

On March 14, The Treasury Department, which administers the government’s Iran sanctions, blacklisted a Greek shipping tycoon, Dimitris Cambis, over what it called his scheme to acquire a fleet of oil tankers on Iran’s behalf and disguise their ownership to ship Iranian oil.

After Talks End, Iran Announces an Expansion of Nuclear Fuel Production

Iran’s president announces an expansion of the country’s uranium production and claims other atomic energy advances, striking a pugnacious tone in the aftermath of diplomatic talks thatended in an impasse with the big powers on April 6 in Kazakhstan.

A look, provided by the United States Navy, at how its laser attack weapon works. The video is silent.

Navy Deploying Laser Weapon Prototype Near Iran

The U.S. announces that the Navy will deploy a laser weapon prototype in the Persian Gulf, where Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships and where the government in Tehran is building remotely piloted aircraft carrying surveillance pods and, someday potentially, rockets.

The laser will not be operational until next year. It has been shown in tests to disable patrol boats and blind or destroy surveillance drones.

President Obama traveled to Israel on March 20, in a symbolic two-day visit to the country, the first of his presidency.

Iran Nuclear Weapon to Take Year or More, Obama Says

President Obama tells an Israeli television station that his administration believes it would take Iran “over a year or so” to develop a nuclear weapon.

Mr. Obama’s estimated timeline contrasts with Mr. Netanyahu’s stated belief that Israel and its Western allies are likely to have to intervene by the spring or summer, when, he says, Iran’s scientists will have enriched enough uranium to become a nuclear threat.

Defiant Mood at Talks

Iran meets with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in Kazakhstan, but talks end with no specific agreement over a proposal that would sharply constrain Iran’s stockpile of the most dangerous enriched uranium, in return for a modest lifting of some sanctions.

The six powers also agreed that Iran could keep a small amount of 20 percent enriched uranium — which can be converted to bomb grade with modest additional processing — for use in a reactor to produce medical isotopes.

Iranian oil sales have been reduced by half as a result of the international pressure on the country, and restrictions on financial transactions and transportation have created many difficulties for its leaders.

New Deposits of Uranium

The state news agency IRNA quotes a report by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, saying that it had found significant new deposits of raw uranium and identified sites for 16 more nuclear power stations.

Iran’s raw uranium reserves now total around 4,400 tons, including discoveries over the past 18 months, IRNA quoted the report as saying.

A few weeks earlier, Ayatollah Khamenei said that his country was not seeking nuclear weapons but added that if Iran ever decided to build them, no “global power” could stop it.

Speaking to air force commanders in Tehran on Feb. 6, Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran “will not negotiate under pressure.” Khamenei Official Web site, via European Pressphoto Agency

U.S. Bolsters Sanctions

A new round of American sanctions take effect which state that any country that buys Iranian oil must put the purchase money into a local bank account. Iran cannot repatriate the money and can use it only to buy goods within that country. Violators risk severe penalties in doing business with the United States. Oil exports from Iran have already dropped by a million barrels a day.

A week earlier, Iran announces that it would deploy a new generation of centrifuges, four to six times as powerful as the current generation.

October 2012

Iran’s Currency Tumbles

Most of that decline comes in a frenzy of speculative selling by Iranians worried that rapid inflation could render their money worthless. The government responds with a crackdown in which some money traders are arrested.

The depressed value of the rial forces Iranians to carry ever-fatter wads of bank notes to buy everyday items. But the sanctions also present a new complication to Iran’s banking authorities: they may not be able to print enough money.

Meanwhile, the European Union toughens sanctions against Iran, banning trade in industries like finance, metals and natural gas, and making other business transactions far more cumbersome.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations, displaying his red line for Iran’s nuclear program. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Israel’s ‘Red Line’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel tells the United Nations that Iran’s capability to enrich uranium must be stopped before the spring or early summer, arguing that by that time Iran will be in a position to make a short, perhaps undetectable, sprint to manufacture its first nuclear weapon.

New Work at Nuclear Site

The United Nations atomic agency reports that Iran has installed three-quarters of the nuclear centrifuges needed to complete a deep-underground site under a mountain near Qum for the production of nuclear fuel.

The I.A.E.A. also says that Iran may have sought to cleanse another site where the agency has said it suspects that the country has conducted explosive experiments that could be relevant to the production of a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, the United States imposes more punishing sanctions against Iran, aimed at its oil and petrochemical sectors, as well as its shipping trade, intensifying existing sanctions intended to choke off the revenue that Iran reaps from its two largest export industries.

The Neptune, an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, is part of a fleet of about 65 Iranian tankers serving as floating storage facilities for Iranian oil, each one given a nautical makeover to conceal its origin and make a buyer easier to find. Thomas Erdbrink

Embargo on Iranian Oil

A European Union embargo on Iranian oil takes effect, playing a large role in severely restricting Iran’s ability to sell its most important export.

In retaliation, Iran announces legislation intended to disrupt traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital Persian Gulf shipping lane, and tests missiles in a desert drill clearly intended as a warning to Israel and the United States.

In January 2013, Iran’s oil minister, Rostam Qasemi, acknowledged for the first time that petroleum exports and sales had fallen by at least 40 percent in the previous year, costing the country $4 billion to $8 billion each month.

Talks With West Falter

After a brief spurt of optimism, talks between Iran and six world powers on its disputed nuclear program fail to produce a breakthrough in Baghdad. The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany wanted a freeze on Iranian production of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity, which is considered a short step from bomb grade. The Iranians wanted an easing of the onerous economic sanctions imposed by the West and a recognition of what they call their right to enrich. The countries agree to meet again in June, but talks were further slowed after a new regimen of harsh economic sanctions and a statement from the International Atomic Energy Agency that said Iran had made ”no progress” toward providing access to restricted sites it suspects of being used to test potential triggers for nuclear warheads.

March 2012

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad surveying the centrifuges at Iran’s underground complex at Natanz in March 2007.Office of the Iranian President

New Centrifuges at Natanz

Meanwhile, I.A.E.A. inspectors are still trying to gain access to the Parchin site, 20 miles south of Tehran, to ascertain whether tests have been carried out there on nuclear bomb triggers.

But satellites images show that the site has been extensively cleaned by the Iranians.

Jan. 11, 2012

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Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency supplied this photo of what it said was Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan’s car after the bombing.Meghdad Madadi/Fars News Agency, via Associated Press

Bomb Kills Nuclear Scientist

A bomber on a motorcycle kills Mostafa Ahmadi Rosha, a scientist from the Natanz site, and his bodyguard. Iran blames Israel and the United States. The Americans deny the accusation, but Israel is more circumspect.

Iran displayed the drone for propaganda purposes, with photographs of ayatollahs who led Iran’s revolution behind it and a desecrated version of the American flag. Revolutionary Guards, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Blow to U.S., as Drone Crashes

A stealth C.I.A. drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel, crashes near the Iranian town of Kashmar, 140 miles from the Afghan border. It is part of a stepped-up surveillance program that has frequently sent the United States’ most hard-to-detect drone into Iran to map suspected nuclear sites.

Iran asserts that its military downed the aircraft, but American officials say the drone was lost because of a malfunction.

Natanz Plant Recovers

After a dip in enriched uranium production in 2010 because of the cyberattacks, Iranian production recovers. While the United States and Israel never acknowledged responsibility for the cyberprogram, Olympic Games, some experts argue that it set the Iranians back a year or two. Others say that estimate overstates the effect.

With the program still running, intelligence agencies in the United States and Israel seek out new targets that could further slow Iran’s progress.

A poster of an Iranian gas field is a backdrop to passers-by in Asaluyeh. Newsha Tavakolian for The New York Times

West Expands Sanctions, and U.N. Offers Evidence on Nuclear Work

Major Western powers take significant steps to cut Iran off from the international financial system, announcing coordinated sanctions aimed at its central bank and commercial banks. The United States also imposes sanctions on companies involved in Iran’s nuclear industry, as well as on its petrochemical and oil industries.

The United Nations atomic agency releases evidence that it says make a “credible” case that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device” at its Parchin military base and that the project may still be under way.

Bombings Strike Scientists in Iran

Unidentified attackers riding motorcycles bomb two of Iran’s top nuclear scientists, killing one and prompting accusations that the United States and Israel are again trying to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

The scientist who was killed, Majid Shahriari, reportedly managed a ”major project” for the country’s Atomic Energy Organization. His wounded colleague, Fereydoon Abbasi, is believed to be even more important; he is on the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions list for ties to the Iranian nuclear effort.

The Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri, with his 7-year-old son, greeting family members in Tehran.Newsha Tavakolian/Polaris, for The New York Times

Iranian Scientist Defects to U.S., Then Reconsiders

Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist who American officials say defected to the United States in 2009, provided information about Iran’s nuclear weapons program and then developed second thoughts, returning to Iran. (After a hero’s welcome, he was imprisoned on treason charges and tortured, according to reports from Iran.)

The bizarre episode was the latest in a tale that has featured a mysterious disappearance from a hotel room in Saudi Arabia, rumors of a trove of new intelligence about Iran’s nuclear plants and a series of contradictory YouTube videos. It immediately set off a renewed propaganda war between Iran and the United States.

Ambassadors to the United Nations, from right: Susan E. Rice of the United States, Mark Lyall Grant of Britain and Ruhakana Rugunda of Uganda voted to affirm a Security Council resolution on Iran while Turkey’s ambassador, Ertugrul Apakan, voted against it. Mario Tama/Getty Images

U.N. Approves New Sanctions

The United Nations Security Council levels its fourth round of sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. The sanctions curtail military purchases, trade and financial transactions carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which controls the nuclear program.

The Security Council also requires countries to inspect ships or planes headed to or from Iran if they suspect banned cargo. In addition, Iran is barred from investing in other countries’ nuclear enrichment plants, uranium mines and related technologies, and the Security Council sets up a committee to monitor enforcement.

Computer Worms Leak Online; 1,000 Centrifuges Destroyed

The United States and Israel realize that copies of the computer sabotage program introduced in Natanz are available on the Internet, where they are replicating quickly. In a few weeks, articles appear in the news media about a mysterious new computer worm carried on USB keys that exploits a hole in the Windows operating system. The worm is named Stuxnet.

President Obama decides not to kill the program, and a subsequent attack takes out nearly 1,000 Iranian centrifuges, nearly a fifth of those operating.

Yukiya Amano, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.Herwig Prammer/Reuters

Work on Warhead

The United Nations’ nuclear inspectors declare for the first time that they have extensive evidence of “past or current undisclosed activities” by Iran’s military to develop a nuclear warhead.

The report also concludes that some Iranian weapons-related activity apparently continued “beyond 2004,” contradicting an American intelligence assessment published in 2008 that concluded that work on a bomb was suspended at the end of 2003.

Leaked Gates Memo on U.S. Policy

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warns in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability.

When the memo becomes public in April, Mr. Gates issues a statement saying that he wishes to dispel any perception among allies that the administration had failed to adequately think through how to deal with Iran.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and President Obama, in Pittsburgh, accused Iran of building a secret nuclear fuel plant.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Warning on Nuclear ‘Deception’

American, British and French officials declassify some of their most closely held intelligence and describe a multiyear Iranian effort, tracked by spies and satellites, to build a secret uranium enrichment plant deep inside a mountain.

The new plant, which Iran strongly denies is intended to be kept secret or used for making weapons, is months from completion and does nothing to shorten intelligence estimates of how long it would take Iran to produce a bomb. American intelligence officials say it will take at least a year, perhaps five, for Iran to develop the full ability to make a nuclear weapon.

The negotiators Saeed Jalili of Iran, left, and William J. Burns, third from right, in Geneva. Pool photo by Denis Balibouse

Talks End in Deadlock

International talks on Iran’s nuclear ambitions end in deadlock despite the Bush administration’s decision to reverse policy and send William J. Burns, a senior American official, to the table for the first time.

Iran responds with a written document that fails to address the main issue: international demands that it stop enriching uranium. Iranian diplomats reiterate before the talks that they consider the issue nonnegotiable.

U.S. – Israel Cyberattacks Begin

President George W. Bush rejects a secret request by Israel for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wants for an attack on Iran’s nuclear program. The Bush administration is alarmed by the Israeli idea to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz and decides to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Mr. Bush will hand off the major covert program to President Obama.

The United States works with Israel to begin cyberattacks, code-named Olympic Games, on computer systems at the Natanz plant. A year later, the program is introduced undetected into a controller computer at Natanz. Centrifuges begin crashing and engineers have no clue that the plant is under attack.

First Round of U.N. Sanctions

The Security Council unanimously approves sanctions intended to curb Iran’s nuclear program. The sanctions ban the import and export of materials and technology used in uranium enrichment and reprocessing and in the production of ballistic missiles.

Iran Opens a Heavy-Water Reactor

Just days before Iran is supposed to suspend enrichment of uranium or face the prospect of sanctions, President Ahmadinejad formally kicks off a heavy-water production plant in Arak, 120 miles southwest of Tehran, which would put Iran on the path to obtaining plutonium, a fuel used in nuclear weapons.

In November, Iran seeks international assistance to ensure safe operation for a 40-megawatt reactor it is building. Citing broader doubts about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the United Nations atomic agency, the United States and European countries oppose offering help.

Natanz Production Is Restarted

Iran resumes uranium enrichment at Natanz after negotiations with European and American officials collapse.

The I.A.E.A. approves a resolution to report Iran’s nuclear program to the Security Council, citing “the absence of confidence” among the atomic agency’s members “that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.”

President Ahmadinejad offended Israel in his speech on the rule of law at a United Nations conference in 2012. Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Ahmadinejad Elected President

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known only as a secular conservative and a former mayor of Tehran, becomes president. He becomes a divisive figure in world affairs, cheering on the development of Iran’s nuclear program despite orders from the United Nations Security Council to halt it, calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map’’ and describing the Holocaust as “a myth.”

Mid-July, 2005

With Laptop Files, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran’s Nuclear Aims

Senior American intelligence officials present the International Atomic Energy Agency with the contents of what they say is a stolen Iranian laptop containing more than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments — studies for crucial features of a nuclear warhead.

Intelligence reports reveal that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a little-known Iranian scientist, leads elements of Iran’s weaponization program known as Project 110 and Project 111.

But doubts about the intelligence persist among some experts, in part because American officials, citing the need to protect their source, have largely refused to provide details of the origins of the laptop beyond saying that they obtained it in mid-2004 from a source in Iran who they said had received it from a second person, now believed to be dead.

Violation and New Agreement

Iran violates the agreement, charging that the Europeans reneged on their promises of economic and political incentives. After 22 hours of negotiations, an Iranian delegation and senior officials from France, Germany, Britain and the European Union come to a preliminary agreement to immediately suspend Iran’s production of enriched uranium. The Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, praises the so-called Paris Agreement but emphasizes that any suspension will be temporary.

In a few weeks, the I.A.E.A verifies Iran’s suspension of its enrichment activities, with one exception: its request to use up to 20 sets of centrifuge components for research and development.

An Iranian missile displayed by the Revolutionary Guards under a portrait of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, in September 2003. Henghameh Fahimi/Agence France-Presse

Nuclear Program Is Suspended

Possibly in response to the American invasion of Iraq, which was originally justified by the Bush administration on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Ayatollah Khamenei orders a suspension of work on what appear to be weapons-related technologies, although he allows uranium enrichment efforts to continue.

Inspectors with the United Nations atomic agency find traces of highly enriched uranium at the Natanz plant, and Iran concedes to demands, after talks with Britain, France and Germany, to accept stricter international inspections of its nuclear sites and to suspend production of enriched uranium.

2002

Discovery of Secret Plants

Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian dissident group also known as the M.E.K., obtains and shares documents revealing a clandestine nuclear program previously unknown to the United Nations.

The program includes a vast uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy water plant at Arak. In December, satellite photographs of Natanz and Arak appear widely in the news media. The United States accuses Tehran of an “across-the-board pursuit of weapons of mass destruction,” but takes relatively little action because it is focused on the approaching invasion of Iraq the next year.

Iran agrees to inspections by the I.A.E.A. It also signs an accord with Russia to speed up completion of the nuclear power plant at Bushehr.

May 1999

Mohammad Khatami in 2009. Hasan Sarbakhshian/Associated Press

Proposal for Nuclear-Free Mideast

President Mohammad Khatami of Iran goes to Saudi Arabia, becoming the first Iranian leader since 1979 to visit the Arab world.

He issues a joint statement with King Fahd expressing concerns about Israel’s nuclear weapons program and support for ridding the Middle East of nuclear weapons. In 2003, Iran supports such a proposal initiated by Syria.

Sanctions Against Iran and Libya

With growing intelligence estimates that Iran may secretly be trying to build a nuclear weapon, President Bill Clinton signs a bill imposing sanctions on foreign companies with investments in Iran and Libya. Such rules are already in place for American companies.

Iran and Russia Sign Nuclear Contract

Iran announces that it will sign an $800 million contract with Russia to complete construction on one of two light water reactors at the Bushehr nuclear plant within four years. After many delays, the project was completed in 2010.

The United States has been persuading countries like Argentina, India, Spain, Germany and France to prohibit the sale of nuclear technology to Iran’s civilian program.

In 2005, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency is on the verge of reviewing Tehran’s nuclear program when Iranian officials admit to a 1987 meetingwith Dr. Khan’s representatives. But Tehran tells the agency that it turned down the chance to buy the equipment required to build the core of a bomb.

1984

Iraqi gunners used a Soviet 130-milllimeter field gun to shell the Iranian cities of Abadan and Khurramshahr.United Press International

Nuclear Program Restarts

The Iran-Iraq war, from 1980 to 1988, changes Iran’s thinking about the nuclear program. With Saddam Hussein pursuing a nuclear program in Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini secretly decides to restart Iran’s program and seeks the assistance of German partners to complete the construction at Bushehr, which was damaged by bombs during the war.

Feb. 11, 1979

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini descending from the Air France plane that returned him to Tehran after 15 years in exile.United Press International

Khomeini Comes to Power

Prime Minister Bakhtiar is overthrown by followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an exiled cleric, after bloody clashes in Tehran.

The new leader is uninterested in the nuclear program and ends the shah’s effort. Many nuclear experts flee the country.

The Bushehr nuclear plant on Aug. 21, 2010, as its first fuel rod was loaded. Getty Images

Creation of Atomic Energy Body

The shah creates the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, which conducts training for its personnel and nuclear deals with countries including the United States, France, West Germany, Namibia and South Africa. By training engineers in Iran and abroad, the country gains a solid understanding of nuclear technologies and capabilities.

A year later, Kraftwerk Union, a West German company, agrees to construct two light water reactors to produce nuclear energy at the Bushehr complex, 470 miles south of Tehran. Construction begins in 1974 but the contract is not signed until 1976.

By the late 1970s, the United States becomes worried that Iran may harbor nuclear weapon ambitions.

July 1, 1968

Iran Signs Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

With the American-provided research reactor running, starting in 1967, Iran becomes one of 51 nations to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreeing to never become a nuclear-weapon state.

Nuclear Program Begins

Iran begins a civilian nuclear program in the 1950s, led by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who reaches a deal through the Eisenhower administration’s Atoms for Peace program. Under the agreement, the United States agrees to provide a nuclear research reactor in Tehran and power plants.

Story 1: Part 2 of 2, Christian Crusades Commences: Congress Declares War On Islamic State and Islamic Republic of Iran? All We Are Saying Is Give Total War A Chance — Obama’s DC (Delay and Contain) Strategy vs. Neoconservative Strategy of Total War — There Is No Substitute For Victory — Videos

“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”

“There is no substitute for victory.”

“The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”

~ General Douglas MacArthur

“If You Can’t Hear the Drums of War You Must Be Deaf”

“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

Satire of Henry Kissinger

Give Peace A Chance (1969) – Official Video

War – Edwin Starr

In 90 seconds: Iran & Iraq: An ancient rivalry – BBC News

The emerging nuclear agreement with Iran would be a “historic blunder” that eclipses other foreign policy debacles in recent decades, former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security Robert Joseph told lawmakers on Wednesday.

General Michael Flynn and Ambassador Robert Joseph on Iran’s Missile Program and a Nuclear Deal

Former DIA Director Lt. General Michael Flynn and Ambassador Robert Joseph discuss their concerns about the exclusion of Iran’s ballistic missile program from the nuclear agreement currently being negotiated with Tehran and their belief that this deal will not stop or slow Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Araqchi: Drafting nuclear deal tough task

Expert-level talks in progress over Iran’s nuclear energy program in Vienna

Jack Devine: The Nuclear Deal & Iran’s Instability

Jack Devine, a retired 32-year CIA veteran, says it is the right thing for the United States to be negotiating with Iran, but he doesn’t think the Islamic Republic’s regime is stable enough for it to safely have nuclear weapons.

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In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

2015 new BBC Documentary The Iraq War – Baghdad’s History

Iran-Iraq War 1980 to 1988 – Part 1 of 3

Iran-Iraq War 1980 to 1988 – Part 2 of 3

Iran-Iraq War 1980 to 1988 – Part 3 of 3

It’s very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.”

~General Douglas MacArthur

Iran Abandons Past Nuclear Promises as Deal Deadline Looms

Tehran backslides on past agreements made in talks

BY: Adam Kredo

Iran is backsliding on promises made to U.S. negotiators during previous rounds of discussions aimed at reaching an agreement to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, according to recent comments.

While senior U.S. officials have insisted Iran will agree to a deal that they describe as a “forever agreement,” a top Iranian negotiator disputed this claim in comments this week.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and senior negotiator Seyed Abbas Araqchi insisted this week that any agreement reached with Western powers will only be temporary and not binding in the long term.

“If any final agreement is struck, it will last for a specified period of time and none of the measures envisaged in it will be permanent,” Araqchi was quoted as saying on Tuesday as he refuted recent comments by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

Araqchi referred to repeated promises by U.S. officials that a final nuclear deal would last “forever” as “a worthless fallacy.”

“Of course, the undertakings that Iran has accepted based on the international treaties, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will continue as long as Iran is a member of these treaties, and the American side’s resort to such issues which is done for domestic consumption or satisfying allies is just a worthless fallacy,” Araqchi was quoted as saying by Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency.

These comments run counter to multiple comments by Obama administration officials claiming that Iran would be subject to certain nuclear restrictions well into the future under the terms of any deal.

On April 2, for instance, Secretary of State John Kerry promised that certain measures to clamp down on Iran’s program “will be in place indefinitely.”

“I’d like also to make one more point very, very clear because it has been misinterpreted and misstated, misrepresented for much of this discussion: There will be no sunset to the deal that we are working to finalize—no sunset, none,” Kerry said in April from Lausanne, Switzerland, where ongoing talks with Iran have been taking place.

“The parameters of this agreement will be implemented in phases. Some provisions will be in place for 10 years; others will be in place for 15 years; others still will be in place for 25 years,” Kerry said. “But certain provisions, including many transparency measures, will be in place indefinitely into the future. They will never expire.”

Several days later, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz publicly described a final deal as a “forever agreement” with Iran.

“It’s not a fixed-year agreement; it’s a forever agreement,” Moniz was quoted as telling reporters. “The access and transparency is unprecedented.”

Again on April 30, Kerry said Iran has given assurances that a deal will be “forever, forever.”

“There are a lot of the assurances and visibility on their program that aren’t for 10 years,” Kerry said. “They’re for 15, they’re for 20, they’re for 25, and they’re forever, forever. And the forever alone gives us, we believe, the capacity to know what Iran is doing. We will not disappoint Israel. We will have inspectors in there every single day. That is not a 10-year deal; that’s forever there have to be inspections.”

However, Araqchi described these statement this week as “more myth than fact.”

He also pushed back against claims that Iran would permit international inspectors to have unprecedented access to Iran’s military and non-military sites.

“I have explained this many times that there is no difference between inspection and visiting the military and non-military centers, that are, in fact, non-nuclear; we don’t accept such a thing,” Araqchi said last week.

Iran will only permit limited and “managed access” to these disputed sites.

A State Department official did not respond to multiple requests for comment clarifying the gap between the United States and Iran.

War Powers Clause

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the power to declare war, in the following wording:

[The Congress shall have Power…] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

A number of wars have been declared under the United States Constitution, although there is some controversy as to the exact number, as the Constitution does not specify the form of such a declaration.

The Pentagon’s ISIS Strategy, By Its Own Accounting, Is a Mess

By Bing West

On June 5, at a Pentagon press conference, Lieutenant General John W. Hesterman III, Combined Forces Air Component Commander, vigorously championed both the success of the bombing in Iraq and Syria, and the Defense Department’s method for controlling air strikes. The briefing illustrated how, as in Vietnam, the military becomes politicized and loses focus.

A few observations:

Attrition is not a strategy.

The general began by saying that bombing was “killing 1000 [ISIS] fighters a month.” These deaths, he asserted, have “a profound effect upon the enemy.”

Stop right there.

Bombing is not a strategy. It is weapon, like a rifle. If attrition were our strategy, then the measure is the number of enemy killed as compared to the total number of fighters plus replacements. For years in Vietnam the CIA and the military claimed that bombing was having a severe effect and that North Vietnamese morale under B-52 strikes was at rock bottom. Maybe so, but North Vietnam eventually conquered South Vietnam.

Pentagon officials shouldn’t be political mouthpieces. It was disappointing that the general asserted, “air power is giving coalition nations the time to execute the effort to finish Daesh. . . . There’ll be tactical setbacks . . . [but] we are fully committed to a strategic defeat of the Daesh terrorists.”

“Fully committed” is a political pledge only the commander-in-chief can make. And President Obama has promised we will not be fully committed. Generals must refrain from being thrust out in front to defend political decisions.

Our mission in Iraq and Syria is incoherent.

No can define the American military mission, because it has no clearly articulated political strategy or end state. Yesterday, retired General McChrystal criticized Hesterman’s Air Force briefing. In his book, he wrote, ”I directed all units cease reporting . . . insurgents killed. . . . I wanted to take away any incentives that might drive commanders and their men to see killing insurgents as the primary goal.”

Today, killing is being trotted out as the primary measure of American effectiveness.

Who speaks for American military objectives and means?

Air-strike control is much too centralized.

I called in strikes in 1966 on the ground in I Corps. No pilot ever hesitated or questioned me. Over the course of dozens of embeds since 2003 in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I have been on the battlefield with our air controllers and observed the process firsthand. The difference in air-strike control is huge.

In his briefing, Hesterman declined to mention how centralized and difficult it has become for a JTAC or a pilot to release a bomb. Today, a pilot is held morally responsible for satisfying himself that the controller on the ground has made the correct call. The videotape of every bombing is reviewed back at base, often by a lawyer. The pilot shares the responsibility for dropping a bomb, regardless of what the man on the ground tells him. I have been out there on the lines looking at Taliban, and heard the air controller next to me talking to the air officer at battalion, with a lawyer present, talking to higher headquarters, while the pilot circled, asking questions about the certainty of the target. The confirmation loop today is much, much longer than in previous wars, both in terms of time and in the number of personnel involved.

When he was asked about the centralization of air support in his briefing, the general answered with these words: ”we use a multitude of sources to initially ID the enemy. Then JTACS in operations centers do a collateral damage estimate and we de-conflict friendlies. And, a senior officer then clears the sortie . . . JTACs are in operations centers watching with ISR . . . in some cases, [op centers] have better situational awareness because they have more input.”

Let me ‘deconflict’ those elliptical sentences: When an air-support operation is conducted in 2015, operations centers hundreds of miles from the target review what the pilot is watching, record what he is saying, give him advice, and overrule him in those cases where the senior watch officer is not convinced.

Is the application of air strikes in 2015 more centralized and more sensitive about civilian casualties than it was during Vietnam, or the bombing of Serbia in the 90s, or even the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003? Of course it is. For the general to imply that the system has not become more centralized during his 32 years as a pilot was disappointing. At the least, our senior military leadership should acknowledge and forthrightly defend this centralized trend. In sum, the threat in Syria and Iraq will not be eliminated by generals who assert “we are fully committed,” and who take credit for killing from the air without acknowledging serious issues with how we apply air power and whether we are on the path to defeating an enemy we won’t even acknowledge is Islamist. — Bing West, a former combat Marine and assistant secretary of defense, has written three books about the war in Iraq, including No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah.

Henry Kissinger: “If You Can’t Hear the Drums of War You Must Be Deaf”

ACCURATE SATIRE: Kissinger, the most famous living practitioner of international statecraft

In a remarkable admission by former Nixon era Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, reveals what is happening at the moment in the world and particularly the Middle East. [please note this is a SATIRE, which in many regards says the truth regarding the current situation, the interview is fiction, it never took place, some of the quotes are from Henry Kissinger]

Speaking from his luxurious Manhattan apartment, the elder statesman, who will be 89 in May, is all too forward with his analysis of the current situation in the world forum of Geo-politics and economics.

“The United States is bating China and Russia, and the final nail in the coffin will be Iran, which is, of course, the main target of Israel. We have allowed China to increase their military strength and Russia to recover from Sovietization, to give them a false sense of bravado, this will create an all together faster demise for them. We’re like the sharp shooter daring the noob to pick up the gun, and when they try, it’s bang bang. The coming war will will be so severe that only one superpower can win, and that’s us folks. This is why the EU is in such a hurry to form a complete superstate because they know what is coming, and to survive, Europe will have to be one whole cohesive state. Their urgency tells me that they know full well that the big showdown is upon us. O how I have dreamed of this delightful moment.”

“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

Mr Kissinger then added: “If you are an ordinary person, then you can prepare yourself for war by moving to the countryside and building a farm, but you must take guns with you, as the hordes of starving will be roaming. Also, even though the elite will have their safe havens and specialist shelters, they must be just as careful during the war as the ordinary civilians, because their shelters can still be compromised.”

After pausing for a few minutes to collect his thoughts, Mr Kissinger, carried on:

“We told the military that we would have to take over seven Middle Eastern countries for their resources and they have nearly completed their job. We all know what I think of the military, but I have to say they have obeyed orders superfluously this time. It is just that last stepping stone, i.e. Iran which will really tip the balance. How long can China and Russia stand by and watch America clean up? The great Russian bear and Chinese sickle will be roused from their slumber and this is when Israel will have to fight with all its might and weapons to kill as many Arabs as it can. Hopefully if all goes well, half the Middle East will be Israeli. Our young have been trained well for the last decade or so on combat console games, it was interesting to see the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 game, which mirrors exactly what is to come in the near future with its predictive programming. Our young, in the US and West, are prepared because they have been programmed to be good soldiers, cannon fodder, and when they will be ordered to go out into the streets and fight those crazy Chins and Russkies, they will obey their orders. Out of the ashes we shall build a new society, there will only be one superpower left, and that one will be the global government that wins. Don’t forget, the United States, has the best weapons, we have stuff that no other nation has, and we will introduce those weapons to the world when the time is right.”

End of interview. Our reporter is ushered out of the room by Kissinger’s minder.

Story 1: Part 1 of 2, Christian Crusades Commences: Congress Declares War On Islamic State and Islamic Republic of Iran? All We Are Saying Is Give Total War A Chance — Obama’s DC (Delay and Contain) Strategy vs. Neoconservative Strategy of Total War — There Is No Substitute For Victory — Videos

“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”

“There is no substitute for victory.”

“The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”

~ General Douglas MacArthur

“If You Can’t Hear the Drums of War You Must Be Deaf”

“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

Satire of Henry Kissinger

Give Peace A Chance (1969) – Official Video

War – Edwin Starr

In 90 seconds: Iran & Iraq: An ancient rivalry – BBC News

What does Iran’s strategy against Islamic State mean for us?

General Wesley Clark: The US will attack 7 countries in 5 years

Congressman Ron Paul, MD – We’ve Been NeoConned

Thomas Barnett: Rethinking America’s military strategy

In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

The Islamic State, Iran, and the Geopolitics of the Middle East

Obama Asks Congress To Declare War On Islamic State | Authorization for Military Force Against ISIS

Why US Attack Iran Full Documentary – British Army Documentary 2015

ISIS World’s Richest Terror Army – Full Documentary 2015

Origins of ISIS – Special Coverage

O’Reilly: Obama Has No Strategy to Defeat Islamic Jihadists

Krauthammer’s Take: Obama Does Not Think He Needs a Strategy to Defeat Islamic Terrorism

The Situation Room Special Report: The War Against ISIS (2015)

Top Commander: Islamic State Not Making ‘Major Advances’ in Iraq

What is driving American civilians to fight ISIS around the world?

Islamic State: The rise of Iraqi insurgency

US Airstrikes Against Islamic State ISIS or ISIL – 10,000 Militants Killed

2015 new BBC Documentary The Iraq War – Baghdad’s History

Iran-Iraq War 1980 to 1988 – Part 1 of 3

Iran-Iraq War 1980 to 1988 – Part 2 of 3

Iran-Iraq War 1980 to 1988 – Part 3 of 3

It’s very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.”

~General Douglas MacArthur

War Powers Clause

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the power to declare war, in the following wording:

[The Congress shall have Power…] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

A number of wars have been declared under the United States Constitution, although there is some controversy as to the exact number, as the Constitution does not specify the form of such a declaration.

The Pentagon’s ISIS Strategy, By Its Own Accounting, Is a Mess

By Bing West

On June 5, at a Pentagon press conference, Lieutenant General John W. Hesterman III, Combined Forces Air Component Commander, vigorously championed both the success of the bombing in Iraq and Syria, and the Defense Department’s method for controlling air strikes. The briefing illustrated how, as in Vietnam, the military becomes politicized and loses focus.

A few observations:

Attrition is not a strategy.

The general began by saying that bombing was “killing 1000 [ISIS] fighters a month.” These deaths, he asserted, have “a profound effect upon the enemy.”

Stop right there.

Bombing is not a strategy. It is weapon, like a rifle. If attrition were our strategy, then the measure is the number of enemy killed as compared to the total number of fighters plus replacements. For years in Vietnam the CIA and the military claimed that bombing was having a severe effect and that North Vietnamese morale under B-52 strikes was at rock bottom. Maybe so, but North Vietnam eventually conquered South Vietnam.

Pentagon officials shouldn’t be political mouthpieces. It was disappointing that the general asserted, “air power is giving coalition nations the time to execute the effort to finish Daesh. . . . There’ll be tactical setbacks . . . [but] we are fully committed to a strategic defeat of the Daesh terrorists.”

“Fully committed” is a political pledge only the commander-in-chief can make. And President Obama has promised we will not be fully committed. Generals must refrain from being thrust out in front to defend political decisions.

Our mission in Iraq and Syria is incoherent.

No can define the American military mission, because it has no clearly articulated political strategy or end state. Yesterday, retired General McChrystal criticized Hesterman’s Air Force briefing. In his book, he wrote, ”I directed all units cease reporting . . . insurgents killed. . . . I wanted to take away any incentives that might drive commanders and their men to see killing insurgents as the primary goal.”

Today, killing is being trotted out as the primary measure of American effectiveness.

Who speaks for American military objectives and means?

Air-strike control is much too centralized.

I called in strikes in 1966 on the ground in I Corps. No pilot ever hesitated or questioned me. Over the course of dozens of embeds since 2003 in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I have been on the battlefield with our air controllers and observed the process firsthand. The difference in air-strike control is huge.

In his briefing, Hesterman declined to mention how centralized and difficult it has become for a JTAC or a pilot to release a bomb. Today, a pilot is held morally responsible for satisfying himself that the controller on the ground has made the correct call. The videotape of every bombing is reviewed back at base, often by a lawyer. The pilot shares the responsibility for dropping a bomb, regardless of what the man on the ground tells him. I have been out there on the lines looking at Taliban, and heard the air controller next to me talking to the air officer at battalion, with a lawyer present, talking to higher headquarters, while the pilot circled, asking questions about the certainty of the target. The confirmation loop today is much, much longer than in previous wars, both in terms of time and in the number of personnel involved.

When he was asked about the centralization of air support in his briefing, the general answered with these words: ”we use a multitude of sources to initially ID the enemy. Then JTACS in operations centers do a collateral damage estimate and we de-conflict friendlies. And, a senior officer then clears the sortie . . . JTACs are in operations centers watching with ISR . . . in some cases, [op centers] have better situational awareness because they have more input.”

Let me ‘deconflict’ those elliptical sentences: When an air-support operation is conducted in 2015, operations centers hundreds of miles from the target review what the pilot is watching, record what he is saying, give him advice, and overrule him in those cases where the senior watch officer is not convinced.

Is the application of air strikes in 2015 more centralized and more sensitive about civilian casualties than it was during Vietnam, or the bombing of Serbia in the 90s, or even the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003? Of course it is. For the general to imply that the system has not become more centralized during his 32 years as a pilot was disappointing. At the least, our senior military leadership should acknowledge and forthrightly defend this centralized trend. In sum, the threat in Syria and Iraq will not be eliminated by generals who assert “we are fully committed,” and who take credit for killing from the air without acknowledging serious issues with how we apply air power and whether we are on the path to defeating an enemy we won’t even acknowledge is Islamist. — Bing West, a former combat Marine and assistant secretary of defense, has written three books about the war in Iraq, including No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah.

Henry Kissinger: “If You Can’t Hear the Drums of War You Must Be Deaf”

ACCURATE SATIRE: Kissinger, the most famous living practitioner of international statecraft

In a remarkable admission by former Nixon era Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, reveals what is happening at the moment in the world and particularly the Middle East. [please note this is a SATIRE, which in many regards says the truth regarding the current situation, the interview is fiction, it never took place, some of the quotes are from Henry Kissinger]

Speaking from his luxurious Manhattan apartment, the elder statesman, who will be 89 in May, is all too forward with his analysis of the current situation in the world forum of Geo-politics and economics.

“The United States is bating China and Russia, and the final nail in the coffin will be Iran, which is, of course, the main target of Israel. We have allowed China to increase their military strength and Russia to recover from Sovietization, to give them a false sense of bravado, this will create an all together faster demise for them. We’re like the sharp shooter daring the noob to pick up the gun, and when they try, it’s bang bang. The coming war will will be so severe that only one superpower can win, and that’s us folks. This is why the EU is in such a hurry to form a complete superstate because they know what is coming, and to survive, Europe will have to be one whole cohesive state. Their urgency tells me that they know full well that the big showdown is upon us. O how I have dreamed of this delightful moment.”

“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

Mr Kissinger then added: “If you are an ordinary person, then you can prepare yourself for war by moving to the countryside and building a farm, but you must take guns with you, as the hordes of starving will be roaming. Also, even though the elite will have their safe havens and specialist shelters, they must be just as careful during the war as the ordinary civilians, because their shelters can still be compromised.”

After pausing for a few minutes to collect his thoughts, Mr Kissinger, carried on:

“We told the military that we would have to take over seven Middle Eastern countries for their resources and they have nearly completed their job. We all know what I think of the military, but I have to say they have obeyed orders superfluously this time. It is just that last stepping stone, i.e. Iran which will really tip the balance. How long can China and Russia stand by and watch America clean up? The great Russian bear and Chinese sickle will be roused from their slumber and this is when Israel will have to fight with all its might and weapons to kill as many Arabs as it can. Hopefully if all goes well, half the Middle East will be Israeli. Our young have been trained well for the last decade or so on combat console games, it was interesting to see the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 game, which mirrors exactly what is to come in the near future with its predictive programming. Our young, in the US and West, are prepared because they have been programmed to be good soldiers, cannon fodder, and when they will be ordered to go out into the streets and fight those crazy Chins and Russkies, they will obey their orders. Out of the ashes we shall build a new society, there will only be one superpower left, and that one will be the global government that wins. Don’t forget, the United States, has the best weapons, we have stuff that no other nation has, and we will introduce those weapons to the world when the time is right.”

End of interview. Our reporter is ushered out of the room by Kissinger’s minder.

Story 1: Round Up The Usual Suspects: Waco Texas Police Massive Arrests of Bikers, Massive Bail Set by Judges of $1 Million, Massive Civil Law Suits For Wrongful Arrest and Detention and Violating Civil Rights — 170 Arrested But 115 Have No Criminal Record — Waco Busted — Taxpayers Will Be Paying The Bill For A Very Long Time — I Say We Let Them Go — Videos

Twin Peaks Waco- What the Video Will Show (as soon as it is released)- Biker Witnesses’s Perspective

Stephen Stubbs (aka “Bowtie”), with permission from biker eye witnesses, releases details of the Twin Peaks Waco incident from May 17, 2015. Until now, the police don’t even know much of this information.

Casablanca (1942) Round Up The Usual Suspects

Biker Fight

Start of biker brawl at Twin Peaks in Waco TX.

Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association:

The Waco situation of recent days raises serious concerns. It seems unprecedented that you have 170 individuals charged with the same or similar crimes and identical bail amounts set at 1 Million Dollars each. When you consider the constitutional prohibition against excessive bail as well as the requirement for probable cause prior to arresting an individual, the risks of abuse in the Waco case seem obvious.

Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer – What is probable cause?

ere, DFW criminal defense attorney Cheves Ligon explains what is required for police to arrest you. You can’t be arrested without probable cause, which can seem confusing. No matter what you’ve been accused of the police must be able to prove your arrest complied with the 4th Amendment.

Every Which Way But Loose – The Black Widows At Their Yard

Any Which Way You Can (1980) – Black Widows Get Asphalted

When her husband was arrested after a shootout at a biker club gathering at a Twin Peaks restaurant May 17, Sheree Clendennen figured security camera video would soon clear him.

“At first I just thought they’re going to take all these guys, look at the video, see who’s innocent and let all these guys go,” said Clendennen, 29, of nearby Hewitt.

“Then week two it was like ‘Oh my gosh — they’re not letting people go. They don’t care what’s on the video,’” she said of police. “With all of the security cameras and all of them out in the parking lot watching what went on, there is no reason all of these guys should have been held so long.”

But 17 days later, of the 177 people arrested in connection with the shooting that killed nine people and wounded more than a dozen, 143 remain jailed this week, many in lieu of $1 million bail. Some face at least a monthlong wait for a bail-reduction hearing, and attorneys say it’s unlikely their clients will post bail. They have been arraigned but have not been formally charged.

‘Wholesale roundup’

Prosecutors have 90 days to present a case to indict to a grand jury before those in custody are entitled to reduced bail.

The bikers were arrested on allegations of engaging in organized crime, but none have been specifically charged in the shootings and the investigation is still in progress this week, said Waco police Sgt. Patrick Swanton.

The delays in prosecuting those at the scene of the shooting have triggered legal complaints and controversy, including a hearing Thursday about whether two state district judges should recuse themselves.

“It’s unprecedented, this wholesale roundup of people,” said F. Clinton Broden, a Dallas attorney who represents Matthew Clendennen. “It seems like something out ofCasablanca — just round everybody up. You’re arresting people for being at the scene of a crime. It’s scary that this can happen in America.”

Amy Kuzniarek, a spokeswoman for the McLennan County district attorney’s office, said this week that “this is an open, active criminal case. … Therefore our office cannot and will not comment.”

Clendennen, who has no criminal record, is a landscaper, father of four, former firefighter and member of the Scimitars motorcycle club. He recently filed a complaint with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct against the justice of the peace who arraigned him, and a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Waco, McLennan County and prosecutors, alleging he was wrongfully arrested and detained.

“He spent 17 days in jail, he’s likely to lose his business, he’s sole provider to his current family, a wife and two children, and he shares custody with his ex-wife, who is going back into court to get custody,” Broden said.

In his complaints, Clendennen claims that McLennan County Justice of the Peace Walter “Pete” Peterson said at arraignment that he set the bikers’ bail at $1 million “to send a message” and that District Attorney Abelino Reyna created “fill-in-the-blank” arrest warrants without probable cause, alleging that the bikers were not cooperating and were therefore not victims.

Petersen declined to comment this week.

Bail reduced

Broden said his client did cooperate, but that even if he didn’t, “that’s his Fifth Amendment right. He got Mirandized.”

As for Clendennen’s arrest, Broden said “there’s got to be individual probable cause. They’ve got the tapes of the scene. There’s no reason they can’t be reviewed to make determinations. You just can’t keep bystanders locked up because you don’t know who did the shooting.”

Clendennen’s attorney negotiated to have his bail reduced to $100,000, and his family chipped in to bail him out Wednesday, paying $10,000 to a bondsman.

Sheree Clendennen said her husband immediately returned to work before he loses any more landscaping customers. His next court date is set for Aug. 6.

Broden noted that for some others, bail reduction hearings have not been scheduled until late July. “My guess is the Department of Justice is going to have to come in at some point. It does not seem the local people are competent to handle this in a constitutional manner.”

Spokesmen for the Justice Department referred questions to local officials this week.

At least 47 of those arrested qualified as indigent and have had attorneys appointed to represent them, according to Cathy Edwards, the local indigent defense coordinator.

She said attorneys for the indigent are typically appointed from a list the county maintains but she has had to draw from surrounding counties because only 15 attorneys on the list are local.

Local bikers gather Sunday in Arlington to show support for those still jailed in Waco

Nearly 100 bikers gathered Sunday morning near the old Six Flags Mall in Arlington to show their support for the 143 people still jailed in connection with a shootout last month outside a Waco restaurant.

The bikers plan to ride together to Waco where they plan to meet hundreds of other motorcyclists outside the McLennan County Courthouse to protest how law enforcement has treated the people arrested after a shootout that killed nine and wounded more than a dozen. Authorities arrested 177 people after a shootout May 17 outside the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, and 143 remain jailed, many in lieu of $1 million bail.

The 177 bikers were arrested on allegations of engaging in organized crime, and critics have said that police lumped everyone under the same umbrella. They say that most of the people who were at the Twin Peaks aren’t criminals and had no part in the shootout. Many jailed have no criminal record, and those who do have prior misdemeanor charges.

“I think they were trying to set an example, throw their weight around,” Dwayne Stobaugh said Sunday morning of Waco police. “There may have been a few bad apples, but not all of them.”

Stobaugh, an independent biker, said he wanted to ride to Waco for the rally to show “that not everyone who rides a motorcycle is a gang member, because we’re not.”

“It’s all peaceful protest,” he said. “We’re not there to stir up any trouble.”

He said he has been to six Confederation of Clubs meetings, like the one planned at the Twin Peaks in May. He described the meetings as peaceful gatherings where members discuss issues important to them, like motorcycle safety.

Mel Robins, a member of Sons of Liberty Riders, said bikers are being unfairly stereotyped and harassed by police. He said the arrests in Waco have “slanted public opinion against bikers.”

Many restaurants now have posted signs saying bikers wearing their club vests won’t be allowed inside, and police are stopping motorcyclists on the highway for what seems like no reason, he said.

The attorney for nine of the Twin Peaks bikers told Breitbart Texas that he was in effect told “You Sir, are poured the f*** out.” A hearing was held this week on motions to remove three McLennan County judges who set and retained $1 million bonds on bikers arrested at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas. The attorney argued that the judges demonstrated bias and should be recused from making future rulings.

Austin lawyer Adam Reposa argued that the $1 million bonds were unreasonably oppressive, unconstitutional, and the judges clearly showed bias in setting them.

Breitbart Texas reported the story when Reposa filed his motions to remove these judges.

Breitbart Texas also reported that two of the same judges had three bikers re-arrested after they bonded out on reduced bonds. Their bonds were reset to $1 million but they were able to bond out again. The article was entitled in part, Waco Judges Gone Wild.

The judge appointed to hear the motions to remove the judges, retired criminal district judge Doug Shaver from Houston, denied the motions to recuse and said that the bond process should be expedited so the men would not be a burden on taxpayers who are paying to keep them in jail.

Reposa told Breitbart Texas that “At the end of the hearing, the judge focused less on the innocent people and their constitutional rights and more on the taxpayers.” He also focused less on the $1 million bonds and more on them wearing a patch (referring to the bikers’ motorcycle club membership).

The defense lawyer also added, “There has been no focus on due process, or probable cause. There is no probable cause connected to a crime. We are going on 24 days of all 170 being arrested on a defective probable cause affidavit.”

Those arrested and incarcerated are concerned about losing their jobs, and losing their wages while incarcerated. A $1 million bond costs approximately $100,000 in order to bond out.

Reposa argued at the hearing on the motions to remove the judges that the judges’ impartiality could reasonably be questioned – one of the standards for removing a judge from hearing a case.

Reposa filed the motion to remove Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson because he not only set $1 million bonds for 174 bikers, but added he was doing so to “send a message.” Peterson does not have a law degree.

According to the Waco Tribune Herald, Peterson said “I think it is important to send a message… We had nine people killed in our community. These people just came in, and most of them were from out of town. Very few of them were from in town.”

Motions to remove Judges Matt Johnson and Ralph Strother were also filed because they approved the $1 million bonds, and ordered that no other judge could rule on motions to reduce the bonds.

The judges were questioned by Reposa during the hearing on the motions.

Breitbart Texastalked to Houston-based lawyer Kent A. Schaffer, who has over 30 years of criminal law practice. Schaffer called the bonds “absurd and unconstitutional.”

Schaffer continued, “Bond is supposed to guarantee the defendant’s appearance in court, but this judge set bonds based upon his desire to teach the defendants a lesson, and not out of some concern that they will not appear in court.”

He said “The hearing should not take place in front of the same judge who has already made comments that evidence his lack of respect for the constitution and the rule of law,” Schaffer told Breitbart Texas. “Sending a message is not one of the factors that is to be considered by the court in setting a bond.”

Breitbart Texastalked to Randy Kubosh of Kubosh Bail Bonding in Houston, which includes Harris County, Texas, the third largest county in the United States. He called the $1 million bond “astronomical” and noted that the bail schedule in Harris County for a non-capital murder is $50,000.

Kubosh said, “Bail is supposed to guarantee someone’s appearance in court, not punishthem.” He continued, “It appears that the judge intended to be punitive,” he added.

Breitbart Texasalso talked to Joe Ash, of Ash Bail Bonds in Waco. He said that “$10,000 is mostly what we see on that charge (engaging in criminal activity) but I can also pull up at least 40 cases where it was $5,000.” Ash has two clients who were involved in the Twin Peaks incident and it cost them $100,000 to bond out on a $1 million bond.

The Waco situation of recent days raises serious concerns. It seems unprecedented that you have 170 individuals charged with the same or similar crimes and identical bail amounts set at 1 Million Dollars each. When you consider the constitutional prohibition against excessive bail as well as the requirement for probable cause prior to arresting an individual, the risks of abuse in the Waco case seem obvious.

Reposa told Breitbart Texas that “The judges have broad discretion but then the constitution steps-in.” He added, “That’s where the constitution is being denied.”

The Austin lawyer said “I think the judge agreed that you can’t hold someone on a $1 million bond if they don’t have probable cause or a criminal action against them, but I was chopped off.”

“The judge basically admitted that people are in jail that don’t belong there which is a problem, but he did not believe it rose to the level of questioning the bias of the judges.”

According to the Waco Tribune Herald, the judges have approved reduced bonds for 58 bikers after agreement were reached between the district attorney’s office and defense lawyers. The publication also reported that 47 bikers have been released from jail as of Thursday evening.

The judges who testified during the hearing said they had not rejected any agreements for reduced bonds since negotiations began on May 30th.

AP: Majority of 170 bikers arrested have no convictions in Texas

Records searched by The Associated Press show more than 115 of the 170 people arrested in the aftermath of a motorcycle gang shootout outside a Central Texas restaurant have not been convicted of a crime in Texas.

Waco police have said that all those arrested after the shooting belonged to criminal motorcycle gangs. Most of them were being held on $1 million bonds Thursday, charged with engaging in criminal enterprise. Nine people were killed in Sunday’s shootout.

Although dozens of those arrested do have criminal records, 117 did not have any convictions listed under their names and birthdates in a database maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The database also shows five of the people killed had convictions in Texas.

DPS acknowledges its data may contain some errors and omissions.

___

6:30 p.m. (CDT)

Police are being less specific about gang affiliations of the nine people killed in a biker shootout outside a Texas restaurant.

Waco police spokesman Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said Thursday all those killed or injured on Sunday were members of five criminal motorcycle gangs at the restaurant for a biker meeting. A day earlier he told The Associated Press that all those killed were members of the two rival gangs at the center of the violence.

Family members of one of the men killed — 65-year-old Jesus Delgado Rodriguez — dispute Swanton’s claims. They say Rodriguez was not part of a gang and did not lead a life of violence.

An Associated Press review of court records and a database maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety found no criminal history in Texas for Rodriguez.

___

4 p.m. (CDT)

A Texas restaurant that was the scene of a motorcycle club conference that ended in gunfire is being sued by a restaurant next door.

A lawsuit was filed Thursday in Dallas. Attorneys for Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant allege the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco was grossly negligent and reckless in hosting the gathering of armed motorcycle gang members on Sunday.

Don Carlos attorney Tony Buzbee says his client was forced to close and was designated as a crime scene despite having had no role in the event. He says “inviting armed rival gangs to a place where alcohol is served is not only unwise, it is reckless.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensation for lost profits and property damage.

The district attorney for the county where nine bikers were killed in a gunfight outside a Texas restaurant is defending the $1 million bond set for about 170 people charged in the incident.

McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna told The Associated Press on Thursday that he supported a local judge’s decision to set the bonds that high.

One person is known to have posted bond so far.

A confederation of motorcycle groups had gathered at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco Sunday when a dispute in the parking lot escalated into deadly violence.

Reyna mentioned the size and scope of the violence, what led up to the shooting and “the fact that a lot of these individuals weren’t even from our county.”

Reyna says he doesn’t know whether he will ask for outside prosecutors to help with the large number of cases.

___

2:30 p.m. (CDT)

Military records show one of the nine bikers killed outside a Texas restaurant was a Purple Heart recipient who served in Vietnam.

Jesus Delgado Rodriguez of New Braunfels, Texas, was an active-duty Marine from 1969 to 1973. He received the Purple Heart, as well as a Navy commendation medal and several other awards. The Purple Heart is given to those wounded or killed in action.

Rodriguez’s family says he was not part of an outlaw biker gang, despite police claims that all nine bikers who died were members of criminal gangs.

An Associated Press review of court records and a database maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety found no criminal history in Texas for Rodriguez.

A confederation of motorcycle groups had gathered at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco Sunday when a dispute in the parking lot escalated into deadly violence.

___

1:30 p.m. (CDT)

Family members of a man killed in a biker shootout at a Texas restaurant say he was not part of an outlaw motorcycle gang.

That contradicts police claims that all nine bikers who died were members of criminal gangs.

The son of 65-year-old Jesus Delgado Rodriguez, of New Braunfels, told the San Antonio Express-News that his father did not lead a life of violence. An Associated Press review of court records and a database maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety found no criminal history in Texas for Rodriguez.

Family members said Rodriguez had belonged to two now defunct motorcycle clubs but was not part of any club when he was shot and killed at Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco.

Waco police spokesman Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton told the AP on Wednesday that all those killed were members of the Bandidos or the Cossacks. Swanton did not immediately return a message Thursday.

One of the bikers arrested sues Waco police for having no cause for the arrest.

What was initially reported as a motorcycle gang shootout that killed nine and wounded 18 to which police heroically responded last month in Waco, TX, at the Twin Peaks restaurant seems a bit more complicated, and bit worse for the cops, than that as further details have been revealed.

This week one of the people arrested at the scene, Matthew Clendennen, filed a lawsuit directly against the officers involved in the incident (Manuel Chavez by name, the others as John and Jane Does) as well as the city.

From that suit filing, in which Mr. Clendennen presents himself as a man with no criminal record, former fireman, small business owner on whom employees depend, and father of three who also depend on his ability to earn income, not to rot in jail. He insists he committed no crime and had no intention of committing any crime when he was arrested while in the Twin Peaks restaurant in the aftermath of the shooting event, and that:

Despite the fact that…Clendennen committed no criminal acts he was arrested at Twin Peaks on or about May 17, 2015 without probable cause and his motorcycle was illegally seized….On or about May 18, 2015, Chavez, aided by [unnamed other police officers], presented a criminal complaint (the “criminal complaint”) against…Clendennen to Justice of the Peace Walter H. “Pete” Peterson (Peterson)….The criminal complaint alleges that Plaintiff Matthew Alan Clendennen committed the capital offense of engaging in organized criminal activity and is attached hereto as Attachment A.

It is believed that Peterson was chosen by Chavez, Does 1-10 and Does 11-20 because he is a former Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper with no formal legal training……the identical criminal complaint used in Plaintiff Matthew Alan Clendennen’s case was used to justify the arrest of more than 100 other individuals and only the names were changed in the various criminal complaints.

The complaint alleges absolutely no individualize probable cause to establish that Plaintiff Matthew Alan Clendennen engaged in organized criminal activity. Moreover, Chavez…failed to inform Peterson that Plaintiff Matthew Alan Clendennen was not a member of the Cossacks nor the Bandidos and that he did not participate in any of the violence occurring at Twin Peaks but instead hid from the violence.

Clendennen is claiming that 170 people on the scene were just rounded up and arrested, in many cases had their motorcycles stolen by police, and were given a uniform $1 million dollar bond with no particular individual reason to believe they had committed any crime at all. He’s actually trying to hit not just the city government, but the specific officers who arrested him, with liability for violating his rights. He claims to be at risk of losing both any custody of two of his children and his landscaping business while in jail.

There are at least four reasons to wonder if the police account and actions about the motorcycle gang shootout that they allege to have pacified are above reproach:

1) As Clendennen’s lawsuit notes, there is insufficient reason to believe that all the 170 arrested even committed any actual crime.

2) The police originally claimed that all those they arrested were members of the two “criminal gangs” most implicated in the deaths, the Bandidos and Cossacks; Associated Press found that not only were they not all members of those specific gangs, but whatever the criminality of the gangs, 115 of the arrested had no criminal records in Texas at least.

4) Despite police reports that the fighting and shooting began inside the restaurant and spilled out, closed-circuit footage of the restaurant seen by AP and reports from the restaurateurs to the APindicate the shooting began outside, which is where the police already were.

Waco restaurant video shows bikers, others seeking cover

As gunfire broke out in the parking lot of a Texas restaurant, dozens of motorcycle riders ran inside seeking cover and tried to guide others to safety, security video reviewed exclusively by The Associated Press showed Wednesday.

The video, shared by representatives of the restaurant, shows bikers on the patio ducking under tables and trying to get inside. At least three people were holding handguns. One biker was seen running with blood on his face, hands and torso.

The footage shows only one round being fired — by a biker on the patio who then ran inside.

Authorities have said the shooting began during an apparent confrontation between two rival motorcycle gangs — the Bandidos and the Cossacks. Some bikers have complained that police acted too hastily in making arrests and scooped up riders who had nothing to do with the violence.

Before the shooting begins, the inside of the restaurant appears to be mostly empty. Bikers and other patrons can be seen walking to the windows facing the parking lot where most of the shooting happened.

When gunfire erupts at 12:24 p.m., most bikers, other patrons and staff immediately run away from the windows and into the restaurant’s interior. At least three people can be seen holding handguns.

Police: Biker Turf Dispute Erupted Into ShootoutPlay video

One camera angle shows bikers running into the men’s bathroom. When there’s no space left in the bathroom, they dash toward the kitchen.

Another camera angle, on the far side of the restaurant from the gunfire, shows patrons who are not wearing biker gear crawling behind tables toward the kitchen. At least three bikers appear to be gesturing for the patrons to crawl to safety.

None of the nine video angles shows the parking lot.

Only one angle, taken from inside a back office in the restaurant, had audio. At 12:24 p.m., a woman is heard screaming, “Oh my God!” That’s followed by multiple cries of “Get back!” Two minutes later, three gunshots are heard. It’s not clear who fired.

Video shows police with assault rifles entering the front door at about the same time. As two officers enter, bikers can be seen lying on the floor with their hands spread.

View gallery

Waco police officers walk along the perimeter of Twin Peaks restaurant during an investigation Wedne …

Before the shooting, at least 20 members of the Cossacks gang can be seen on the patio. Members of the Scimitars, Boozefighters and Leathernecks can also be seen on the tape. While no Bandidos are immediately visible, police and one member of that biker gang have said some of their members were at the event.

The AP was shown the video by representatives of the Twin Peaks franchise, who have said the fighting began outside the restaurant, not inside as police have previously said. The franchise did not release the video publicly, citing the ongoing investigation.

Waco police spokesman Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said police have the video, but he had not seen it and would not discuss its contents.

Authorities on Sunday swept up around 170 bikers who descended on the restaurant. Among those arrested was Theron Rhoten, who had just pulled into the parking lot on his vintage Harley chopper when the bullets started flying.

Rhoten showed up at the Twin Peaks restaurant for a regional motorcycle club meeting. But, according to his wife, he soon found himself in the middle of a deadly shootout involving scores of other bikers.

View gallery

A Waco police officer and a city employee collect empty water bottles during an investigation at Twi …

Katie Rhoten said her husband ran for cover and was later arrested, along with motorcycle-riding friends and other “nonviolent, noncriminal people.”

“He’s good to his family,” she said. “He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t do drugs. He doesn’t party. He’s just got a passion for motorcycles.”

Police have said that all those arrested were part of criminal motorcycle gangs, but only five of the nine people killed had criminal histories in Texas, based on court records and a search of their names in a database maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

In addition, Manuel Isaac Rodriguez was arrested in 2010 and served probation for unlawfully carrying a weapon at a bar in Lewisville.

Police have acknowledged firing on armed bikers, but it is not clear how many of the dead were shot by gang members and how many were shot by officers.

View gallery

A Waco police officer collects empty water bottles during an investigation at Twin Peaks restaurant, …

Authorities have said the gathering of five biker groups was to resolve a dispute over turf. Some bikers dispute that, saying the meeting was organized to discuss laws protecting motorcycle riders and other subjects.

Katie Rhoten said her husband, a mechanic from Austin, called her from jail and said that he and two other members of Vise Grip motorcycle club ducked and ran for cover as the violence raged around them.

The arrested bikers have all been charged with engaging in organized crime and each is being held on $1 million bonds.

The eight members of Theron Rhoten’s group, the Vise Grip Club, specialize in building and riding vintage and antique motorcycles, particularly pre-1970 Harley Davidson big twin choppers, according to spokesman Brian Buscemi.

One Quarter Of Twin Peaks Shootout Suspects From Central Texas

Forty-two of the approximately 170 suspects in custody in connection with the deadly shootout between rival biker gangs and police Sunday at Waco’s Twin Peaks restaurant are from Central Texas and 17 are from Waco or a Waco suburb, according to information released Wednesday.

That supports the early contention that most of the bikers involved in the brawl that left nine dead and 18 injured were not local.

One Suspect Freed On Bond

One of the members of a motorcycle gang arrested in connection with the gun battle Sunday outside of Waco’s Twin Peaks restaurant was in the process of posting $1 million bond Wednesday at the McLennan County Jail.

Jeff Battey, 50, was among the 170 bikers arrested after the shootout Sunday that left nine bikers dead and 18 injured.

All 170 were charged with engaging in organized crime and were ordered held in lieu of $1 million bonds.

Battey had to post 10 percent of that amount, or $100,000, in cash, in order to secure his release.

Hundreds Of Weapons Recovered

Meanwhile Wednesday, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said investigators recovered about 300 weapons from the shooting scene including everything from pocket knives to assault-style knives to guns to chains to brass knuckles, to an AK-47 and body armor.

Earlier in the day, Swanton said about 1,000 weapons were recovered.

He said on-scene investigators were relaying the information to him.

“The crime scene officers specifically stopped at my request to count weapons and have now been able to determine that count and it is 318 and still counting. We do expect the numbers to continue to rise,” he said late Wednesday afternoon.

Investigators found weapons hidden throughout the restaurant, evidently abandoned by bikers as they attempted to flee, Swanton said.

“They have been found in sacks of chips, stuffed between bags of flour, stuffed into the bench seating, hidden in shelves, thrown into trash cans, placed in the kitchen stoves, discarded on floors and even so far as to attempt to flush a handgun down a commode,” he said.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, investigators had recovered 188 handguns, an AK-47 rifle and 157 knives, he said.

Swanton walked through the restaurant earlier Wednesday

“When you enter through the doors, it is just an eerie feeling knowing what occurred there, he said.

“There are still purses on the table from a small number of citizens.”

“We’re talking unimaginable numbers of evidence that we’re going to have to live from this crime scene,” he said.

“Blood still on parking lot is an environmental issue at this point,” he said.

Meanwhile Wednesday San Antonio officials confirmed that one of the men arrested in connection with the shootout is a retired San Antonio police detective.

Martin Lewis 62, worked for the department for more than 30 years before he retired in 2004.

He remains jailed in lieu of $1 million bond charged with engaging ni organized crime.

Autopsy Reports Released

Preliminary autopsy reports released Tuesday identify the nine bikers who died Sunday afternoon in a shootout with rival gang members and police at Waco’s Twin Peaks restaurant, and at least two of them have local ties.

The nine bikers, all of whom were members of either the Bandidos or the Cossacks, all died of gunshot wounds.

Jesus Delgado Rodriguez, 65, died of gunshot wounds of the head and trunk.

Jacob Lee Rhyne, 39, died of gunshot wounds to the neck.

Richard Vincent Kirshner, Jr., 47, died of gunshot wounds but the report did not specify where he was shot.

Richard Matthew Jordan, III, 31, died of gunshot wounds to the head.

Wayne Lee Campbell, 43, died of gunshot wounds to the head and trunk.

Daniel Raymond Boyett, 44, died of gunshot wounds to the head.

Matthew Mark Smith, 27, died of gunshot wounds to the trunk

Manuel Issac Rodriguez, 40, died of gunshot wounds but the report did not specify where he was shot.

And Charles Wayne Russell, 46, died of gunshot wounds to the chest.

Jordan and Boyett both lived in Waco at least at one time, according to online Texas driver’s license records.

Boyett’s most recent renewal listed an address in the Chalk Bluff area just outside of Waco.

Jordan’s most recent license renewal, however, showed a Pasadena address.

Online records show addresses in New Braunfels for Jesus Rodriguez, Ranger for Jacob Rhyne, Arlington for Wayne Campbell, Keller for Matthew Smith, Allen for Manuel Rodriguez and Tyler for Charles Russell.

No records were found for Richard Kirshner.

Eight of the dead bikers were members of the Cossacks and one was a Bandido, authorities confirmed.

About 50 weapons were recovered at the shooting scene including guns, knives and a chain with a padlock that could be used to beat someone, police said Monday.

Other weapons have been discovered in some off the vehicles towed from the shooting scene, police said.

Investigators, meanwhile, continued to process evidence for a third day Tuesday at the Waco Twin Peaks restaurant where a gun battle between rival biker gangs and police left nine dead and 18 injured.

Stores on the west side of the Central Texas Marketplace from Men’s Warehouse to Kohl’s were open again Tuesday, but those on the south side, from Cabella’s to Best Buy were still closed Tuesday.

Access to the south side of the complex was still restricted.

The shooting investigation will take weeks if not months, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said during a news conference Tuesday morning.

He later said investigators hope to clear the crime scene by mid-morning Wednesday.

Crews continued to remove an estimated 135 motorcycles and at least 80 cars and pickup trucks from the restaurant’s parking lot Tuesday, a process that started Monday evening.

Police are escorting the flatbed trucks carrying the cycles and vehicles from the scene to an impound site, Swanton said.

Seven of the 18 bikers injured in the shootout remained in hospitals Tuesday, Swanton said.

All of them are in stable condition and most are improving he said.

He declined to release the names of the nine bikers who were killed, however, because investigators are having trouble locating family members to notify, he said.

Swanton discounted media reports that four of the nine bikers were killed by police, saying that will be impossible to determine until autopsies and ballistic tests have been completed.

“Is it possible? Yes. Is it a fact? No,” he said.

Most of the dead, the injured and the about 170 suspects arrested after the shooting are not from the Waco area, he said.

By mid-morning Tuesday, more than 160 suspects had been booked into the McLennan County Jail, according to online records.

The incident that triggered the violence evidently occurred in the parking lot Sunday as a coalition of several biker groups gathered to meet in the patio bar area of the restaurant, Swanton said.

Members of a biker group that wasn’t part of the coalition showed up and it appears that “someone had their foot run over” in the parking lot he said.

Investigators have identified crime scenes inside and outside of Twin Peaks including bathroom areas, the restaurant area and the patio bar area, he said.

They’ve found evidence of “some type of altercation inside,” he said, including blood.

“We will figure it out,” he said.

“We do know that we have crime scenes inside and outside and we know that assaults occurred inside and outside the establishment,” he said.

He confirmed that there have been “credible threats to law enforcement in and around our area,” but said those have toned down over the past 24 hours.

“We’re thankful for that,” he said.

“We are asking (the biker groups) to stand down, we are asking them to let us sort through our investigation and we will be honest with them as we have with you and will continue to be,” Swanton told reporters.

Patrol officers have arrested a few bikers in the area, he said, and report that they are seeing fewer bikers Tuesday.

The violent feud likely hasn’t ended, though, he said.

Is this over? Most likely not,” he said.

“We would like it to be. Would like some sort of truce,”
he said.

The 18 Waco officers and four Texas Department of Public Safety Officers involved in the incident remain on duty as Waco police, Texas Rangers and the DPS Criminal Investigation Division investigate, he said.

Charges Filed Against About 170

The approximately 170 suspects arrested after the shootout Sunday were all charged with engaging in organized crime and were ordered held in lieu of $1 million bonds.

Investigators are questioning them and are encountering varying degrees of cooperation, Swanton said.

One of the 170, Justin Nash Waddington, is a drainage maintenance supervisor for the City of Killeen, city spokeswoman Hillary Shine confirmed Tuesday.

She had no further comment.

McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said Tuesday he plans to keep all 170 suspects in his jail for as long as he can.

There were 161 inmates charged in the shooting listed on the McLennan County Jail roster at 10 a.m. Tuesday and a few suspects remained to be booked, McNamara said.

“We’ve had to make sure (the inmates) are separated by gang,” McNarama said.

So far they’ve caused no problem in the jail, he said.

McNamara said his staff is capable of handling the influx and there is ample room to keep them all until their court dates begin to be set.

Affidavits and arrest warrants totaled more than 500 pages, an official said.

At least some and technically all of those in custody could be charged with capital murder because of the number of victims, Waco Swanton said Monday.

All of those killed and injured were members of the Bandidos and Cossacks motorcycle groups, authorities said.

No officers or bystanders were hurt.

Restaurant Franchise Revoked

Meanwhile the Twin Peaks corporate office Monday revoked the franchise of the restaurant where the shooting occurred.

“We are in the people business and the safety of the employees and guests in our restaurants is priority one,” the company said.

“Unfortunately the management team of the franchised restaurant in Waco chose to ignore the warnings and advice from both the police and our company, and did not uphold the high security standards we have in place to ensure everyone is safe at our restaurants.

“We will not tolerate the actions of this relatively new franchisee and are revoking their franchise agreement immediately. Our sympathies continue to be with the families of those who died and are very thankful no employees, guests, police officers or bystanders were hurt or injured,” the statement said.

Trouble at Twin Peaks among rival bikers had been brewing for some time, District Attorney Abel Reyna told News 10 about two weeks ago.

Reyna said local police were on heightened alert in anticipation of trouble on Thursday nights, when Twin Peaks hosts a Biker Night.

Reyna said some weeks ago trouble erupted between two local motorcycle gangs and that spilled over into gangs from the Dallas-Fort Worth area showing up to support the local groups.

Jay Patel, Operating Partner for the Waco Twin Peaks, issued a statement Sunday evening that said the restaurant management and employees share in the community’s trauma.

“We are horrified by the criminal, violent acts that occurred outside of our Waco restaurant today.

“We share in the community’s trauma.

“Our management team has had ongoing and positive communications with the police and we will continue to work with them as we all want to keep violent crime out of our businesses and community,” he said.

On Monday, however, Swanton said the restaurant’s owners were not cooperative with police.

“They have some answering not only to do to you, but to our community as well,” he told reporters.

Late Monday afternoon the restaurant’s operators issued another statement in which they said law enforcement officials did not ask the operator or the franchisor to cancel the patio reservation on Sunday.

The event Sunday afternoon was not a Bike Night, the statement said, but instead the result of a “regular patio reservation made by a female customer who has been to the restaurant previously.”

“Based on the information to date, we also believe that the violence began outside in the area of the parking lot, and not inside our restaurant or on our patio, as has been widely reported,” the statement said.

“We are disappointed that the franchisor, Twin Peaks, made a sudden decision to cancel our Waco franchise before all of the facts are learned. We will continue to assist the authorities in any way possible that will assist in their efforts to bring the wrongdoers to justice,” the statement said.

The statement said the restaurant has hosted seven Bike Nights since last fall “without altercations such as this.”

“We are in the process of gathering additional facts, and urge that people avoid rushing to judgment before those facts are fully known,” the statement said.

Security Tight At Crime Scene

Police were on alert for additional violence Monday and security was tight around the crime scene.

Snipers were positioned on the restaurant’s roof and on overpasses that overlook the crime scene to protect not only investigators, but also the media gathered to cover the shooting.

The danger Sunday at the restaurant was significant, Swanton said, but on Monday he described the scene as secure.

He confirmed, however, that death threats have targeted uniformed police officers.

The nine bodies of gang members who died in the shooting have been taken to various morgues for autopsy.

McLennan County Justice of the Peace Pete Peterson ordered the autopsies, but declined to identify them until their families have been notified.

They all were from Texas, he said.

Three of the dead were found in the parking lot just outside of the restaurant, four were found in front of the building and one had been dragged behind a neighboring restaurant, Swanton said.

All nine were members of two of the five gangs involved in the melee, he said.

Waco crime scene investigators assisted by officers from federal, state and county agencies including the FBI, the ATF and the Department of Public Safety, were meticulously diagramming the crime scene Monday, Swanton said.

Once that process is finished, Swanton said, about 100 motorcycles and many of the 50 to 75 private vehicles in the restaurant’s parking lot will be towed away as evidence.

Investigators say they expect to remain at the scene at least until dark Monday night, Swanton said.

Portions of the Central Texas Marketplace, meanwhile, remained closed on Monday as the investigation continued.

Stores on the west side of the complex from Men’s Warehouse to Kohl’s were open Monday morning, but those on the south side, from Cabella’s to Best Buy were ordered to remain closed.

Traffic into the shopping center off Interstate 35 and Loop 340 was still restricted Monday.

Restaurant’s Alcohol Sales Suspended

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Monday announced it is suspending alcohol sales at the restaurant for seven days because of the shooting.

State law allows the agency to suspend a business license to sell alcohol after a shooting, stabbing or murder on premises that’s likely to result in subsequent leadership.

“Any wrongdoing uncovered during the investigation could result in further action against the restaurant, including monetary fines, further suspension, or cancellation of its TABC license to sell alcohol,” the agency said in a press release Monday.

“Our investigators will continue to work with the Waco Police Department to collect statements from any party involved, especially the restaurant staff,” said Maj. Victor Kuykendoll, TABC District 2 Regional Commander.

“We will continue to investigate the operations of the restaurant to determine if they failed to properly manage the folks on the premises and enabled this event to take place.”

The Harker Heights Twin Peaks restaurant has the same owner as the Waco restaurant, the TABC confirmed Monday, but the license suspension will not affect the Harker Heights operation.

The restaurant will be allowed to resume normal operations after seven days, pending the results of the investigation, which could take several weeks to complete.

Once police clear the crime scene the restaurant could resume food sales, but Swanton said Monday he hopes the owners will allow for a cooling-off period and will keep the business closed for the immediate future.

DPS Director: Twin Peaks Gunfight Unprecedented

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, a former FBI agent, said Monday that the shootout Sunday was the first time “we’ve seen this type of violence in broad daylight.”

McCraw’s agency sent Texas Rangers to process the crime scene and special agents who target motorcycle gangs.

McCraw says DPS is constantly monitoring biker gangs and that motorcycle gang violence dates back to at least the 1970s.

Officers “Did A Hell Of A Job”

Waco police anticipated possible violence Sunday based on the previous disturbances at the restaurant and on unspecified intelligence.

Eighteen uniformed Waco police officers including an assistant chief, sergeants and one rookie were standing by outside the restaurant Sunday and responded within a matter of seconds after the violence broke out between members of five rival gangs, Swanton said.

“They did a hell of job in response to a very deadly scene,” he said.

He declined to name the gangs, saying “we’re not going to give them publicity,” but they included the Bandidos, the Cossacks and the Scimitars.

The catalyst for the violence was a fight that broke out in a restaurant restroom and spilled into the outdoor party bar area, Swanton said.

Shots were fired inside the restaurant and bikers were shot, stabbed and beaten before the fight quickly moved outside to the parking lot, Swanton said.

As the officers responded, the bikers directed gunfire in their direction, police said.

The number of shots fired and who fired them won’t be released immediately pending completion of the investigation, he said.

“Those officers quickly gained control of a very violent scene and took numerous biker individuals into temporary custody,” he said.

They called for backup and officers from agencies throughout McLennan County responded, he said.

Officers from those agencies remained at the scene Monday, he said.

Off-duty officers who were shopping nearby also responded, even though they lacked protective gear, Swanton said.

Diners and some employees locked themselves in a freezer to escape the violence.

The scene at the Market Place between Don Carlos and Twin Peaks was absolute chaos, Swanton said earlier.

“It is one of the most violent scenes I’ve seen in my 34 years as a police officer in Waco,” Swanton said.

Swanton said officers recovered more than 100 weapons from the scene and there were several vehicles that had bullet holes in them.

The 18 injured victims were taken by ambulance to Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center, Providence Health Center and two were reportedly transferred to Scott & White Hospital in Temple because of the severity of their injuries.

Their names and information about their conditions weren’t available Monday.

Neither Hillcrest nor Providence would comment Monday on how many patients from the shooting they have or on security measures in place in the aftermath of the violence.

Scores of suspects were transported in vans and buses to the Waco Convention Center downtown, which was also under tight security.

The suspects were processed there before they were transferred to jail.

Officers also were also sent to the Flying J Truck Stop, at New Road and Interstate 35 because of reports a large number of bikers had been seen gathering there.

Customers At Nearby Restaurant Took Cover

A witness who was having lunch across the parking lot at Don Carlos said he and his family had just finished eating and walked into the parking lot when they heard several gunshots and saw wounded being taken from the fight scene.

“We crouched down in front of our pickup truck because that was the only cover we had,” the man, who asked not to be identified, said.

He and his family were traveling to Salina, Kansas and decided to stop for lunch.

He said he saw several wounded men being treated.

He also said there were several police officers at the scene and ambulances were responding to the scene to aid those hit by gunfire.

Ambulances from Waco and a number of surrounding communities responded to the scene, Swanton said.

Area businesses, after learning of the shooting, sent water and food to officers at the scene, he said.

Baylor University police deployed additional officers as a precaution after the gun battle, but in an email said the campus was never in any danger.

“Baylor police have been monitoring and will continue to monitor the situation,” the campus-wide email said.

Waco Mayor Thanks Officers

Waco Mayor Malcolm Duncan, Jr., issued a statement Monday evening in which he thanked the law enforcement officers and first responders to “joined forces to control and minimize the tragic loss that occurred in our city.

“We are fortunate to have such well trained professionals who are prepared at a moment’s notice to step forward, risking their own life and safety, to protect the lives of others and to make a strong collective statement that we will not tolerate wrongful acts of violence in our community,” he said.

“I am thankful that innocent bystanders were not harmed in this incident and I want to assure all of our citizens that your safety is and has been our priority and we are confident that this rogue event will not disrupt or endanger our community,” he said

“Waco’s location on I-35 has always been a strategic advantage but in this case it only facilitated the convening of a large group of people with criminal capability. We are fairly certain most of the criminal activity was perpetrated by non-residents. We want to also assure the tourists and other travelers that Waco is safe and secure and back to work,” he said.

A lawyer representing one of the more than 170 bikers arrested outside of a Waco restaurant May 17 has filed a civil rights lawsuit saying his client’s arrest and detention is unconstitutional.

F. Clinton Broden released a statement Friday saying 30-year-old Matthew Alan Clendennen, arrested outside the Twin Peaks restaurant earlier this month after nine people were killed and 18 injured, is suing the City of Waco, McLennan County and Waco Police Officer Manuel Chavez.

Texas Biker Gang Mug Shots

In the suit, “Chavez is accused of signing a “fill in the name” warrant he knew lacked individual probable cause and deceiving the Justice of the Peace who signed the criminal complaint. The City of Waco and McLennan county are accused of “caus[ing] the arrest and detention of numerous individuals…regardless of whether or not there was individualized probable cause to arrest and detain a particular individual.”

Broden’s news release on the suit goes on to say Clendennen is a longtime McLennan County resident, a Baylor graduate and a former firefighter for the Hewitt and Marlin fire departments. It also says his client’s continued detention is putting a strain on the shared custody of his children, the management of his landscaping company and the welfare of his employees.

Broden said Clendennen, a member of the Scimitar Motorcycle Club, was present on the patio but took cover in the restaurant after a fight broke out. He said his client did not engage in any violent behavior and did nothing to encourage such behavior.

“Mr. Clendennen was arrested on a “fill in the name” criminal complaint and has been incarcerated for almost two weeks on a $1,000,000.00 bond. As a result, Mr. Clendennen’s ex-wife has petitioned for full custody of the two children they currently share custody of and Mr. Clendennen is at risk of losing his landscaping business although his father is attempting to run the business in his absence. If Mr. Clendennen loses the business, his employees will be without jobs,” Broden said in a news release.

“In order to arrest somebody in the United States, the Supreme Court has made clear that there must be individualized probable cause to believe that a particular person actually committed a crime. In this case, there was absolutely no evidence that Mr. Clendennen committed any crime” said Broden.

Broden’s statement added that bond hearings to reduce the $1 million bonds are not being heard until June 5 and, after consultation with the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office, the Justice of Peace has refused to schedule a “probable cause hearing” until Aug. 6.

“In America we normally do not hold an innocent person in custody for three months before according them a probable cause hearing. From a constitutional perspective, what is occurring in McLennan County is extremely troubling,” Broden said.

Waco police spokesman Sgt. Patrick Swanton could not immediately be reached for comment, per the Associated Press.

Released Waco bikers: ‘They made us feel like animals’

For the first time in two weeks and one day, Morgan English ran into the arms of her husband, William. They are bikers from Brenham, Texas, but have spent every day since May 17 inside the McLennan County Jail.

They were among the 170 people arrested in the aftermath of the bloody May 17 shootout at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. Nine people were killed and 18 others were injured.

The Englishes’ attorney was able to negotiate a smaller bond to secure their release.

USA TODAY

Biker in Waco shootout files civil rights lawsuit

“They made us all feel like animals, like they herded us,” said Morgan English.

The couples’ attorney, Paul Looney, said William and Morgan English had nothing to do with the violence that day.

“They intentionally went there because they knew there was going to be a big gathering of bikes,” Looney explained. “They had absolutely no clue that anyone had any other agenda at any time.”

Morgan and William English embrace after being released from the McLennan County Jail on Monday, June 1, 2015. Their bail was reduced from $1 million to $25,000. (Photo: WFAA-TV, Dallas -Fort Worth)

The Englishes said they had no part in the fight, and aren’t members of the Cossacks or Banditos gangs.

Still, Waco police handcuffed them and some 170 others at the scene.

“They didn’t pinpoint who did what; they didn’t ask, ‘Are you innocent? Tell us what happened.’ They just arrested all of us!” Morgan English said.

USA TODAY

Waco police call for truce after deadly biker violence

Looney presented their case to the county’s district attorney on Monday, who reduced their bail from $1 million to $25,000, making their reunion possible.

“This has been like a death in the family,” Looney said. “Everybody has come in, and they’ve sat by the phone waiting for the next call from jail.”

The Englishes now wait to see where their case goes next.

Bikers will be back in Central Texas this weekend as the All For 1 Waco Freedom Ride is set for Sunday. Bikers will end up at the McLennan County Courthouse in support of those still in jail.

Waco witness: ‘It was a setup from start to finish’

Richie was the first to die, then Diesel, then Dog.

Whatever else they were in life, the men with the biker nicknames were Cossacks, loud and proud and riders in a Texas motorcycle gang. And that’s what got them killed, shot to death in a brawl with a rival gang in the parking lot of a Texas “breastaurant” that advertised hot waitresses and cold beer.

“I saw the first three of our guys fall, and we started running,” said their brother-in-arms, another Cossack, who said he was there a week ago when the shooting started at the Twin Peaks restaurant.

The Cossack, president of a North Texas chapter of the motorcycle gang, asked not to be identified because he is in hiding and said he fears for his life. He is a rare eyewitness speaking publicly about the Waco shootings, one of the worst eruptions of biker-gang violence in U.S. history.

Since last week’s violence, Waco police have offered few conclusions in their investigation. But they have said that the violence was touched off when an uninvited group, presumed to be the Cossacks, showed up at a meeting of a larger confederation of motorcycle clubs dominated by the Bandidos.

In several interviews in recent days, the Cossacks rider offered a different story. He said the Cossacks were invited to the Twin Peaks patio that day — by a Bandido leader, who offered to make peace in a long-running feud between the two gangs. That invitation was a setup for an ambush, though, according to the Cossack. That’s why the dead included six Cossacks, one Scimitar (an ally of the Cossacks) and only two Bandidos.

The biker’s story could not be independently verified; most of those involved in the shootout are still in jail. But significant parts of his account square with police statements, as well as security camera videos obtained by The Associated Press.

The biker culture has unwritten rules that everybody in its world knows and has predictable consequences for stepping out of line.

So when a biker from the Bandidos, the oldest gang in Texas and one of the largest in the world, ran into a young Cossack in the Twin Peaks parking lot last Sunday, everyone knew what was coming. First words, then fists, then guns. Within seconds, Richie, Diesel and Dog were dead.

“I took off,” the Cossacks rider said. “I got out of there. I didn’t have a weapon. I couldn’t fight anybody.”

At odds for years

It started with a phone call.

About a week before the gunfight, according to the Cossack, a leader of the Bandidos, a man named Marshall from East Texas, contacted Owen Reeves, the “nomad,” or leader, of the Cossacks’ Central Texas region.

The two gangs had been at odds for years. The Bandidos consider themselves the big dogs of the Texas biker world, and other gangs — or clubs, as they prefer to be called — generally don’t cross them.

The Bandidos wear their claim to the Lone Star State on their backs. Their vests have“Bandidos” across the shoulders, just above their logo, a caricature based on Frito-Lay’s Frito Bandito. Below, the word “Texas” is stitched boldly in an inverted crescent.

That crescent, the “Texas rocker,” has long belonged to the Bandidos, and they consider it a provocation if someone else wears it without permission, which is exactly what the Cossacks did.

The Bandidos are second in numbers only to the Hells Angels and have as many as 2,500 members in 13 countries, according to the Justice Department, which considers the group a violent criminal enterprise engaged in running drugs and guns. The Cossacks, a smaller group, do not show up on law enforcement lists of criminal gangs, but the group has been growing more aggressive in recent years. Officials have warned of the potential for violence between the two gangs.

“We don’t claim any territory, but the reason that the Bandidos have such an issue with us is that we wear the Texas rocker on our back, but we don’t pay them $100 a month per chapter to do it,” the Cossack said.

On May 1, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a bulletin to law enforcement agencies across the state warning about the Bandidos having “discussed the possibility of going to war” with the Cossacks, largely over the issue of the Texas rocker.

The bulletin noted that on March 22, several Cossacks attacked a Bandido with chains, batons and metal pipes. On the same day, Bandidos attacked a Cossack with a hammer and demanded that he remove the Texas rocker from his vest.

After all that, the phone call from Marshall was a welcome olive branch, the Cossack said.

Marshall invited the Cossacks to Twin Peaks last week when the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents was scheduled to hold a major meeting. Those meetings are generally about bikers’ rights, safety and other administrative issues. The Bandidos dominate that organization; the Cossacks are not members.

Marshall said that the Bandidos “wanted to get this cleared up,” according to the Cossack, who was relating what he said Reeves told him.

“He said, ‘Bring your brothers, hang out, and let’s get this fixed and we can all leave in peace and be happy.’ He was talking to our chapter in Waco. … The leader of our Central Texas chapter said, ‘OK, I’m going to make this happen.’ ”

Reeves, who was jailed after the melee, could not be reached for comment. No members of the Bandidos could be reached for comment.

On the patio

Last week, about 70 Cossacks on Harley-Davidsons thundered down Interstate 35 through Waco and rolled into the parking lot of the Twin Peaks.

The Cossack said he and the others congregated on the outdoor patio and started ordering food and drinks. They chatted with other bikers from smaller mom-and-pop bike clubs ahead of the 1 p.m. confederation meeting.

Guns and other weapons are a common part of biker culture, and the Cossack acknowledged that members of his gang were armed.

“But not all of us,” he said. “We had no reason to believe that this was going to go that way.”

The parley with the Bandidos had been set for 11 a.m., the Cossack said, but the Bandidos didn’t arrive until about 12:15, when about 100 of them pulled up in a long, loud line of Harleys.

Trouble started almost immediately, he said: One of the Bandidos, wearing a patch that identified him as a chapter president, ran his bike into a Cossack standing in the parking lot. The Cossack who was hit was a prospect, a man seeking to become a full member of the club.

“They came up really fast, and the prospect turned and faced the bikes,” the Cossack chapter president said. “He fell backward into other parked bikes. The guy who hit him stopped and got off of his bike and said, ‘What are you doing? Get … out of my way. We’re trying to park.’”

In a blink, it started, he said: “Two punches: One from them, one from us.”

A Bandido with a patch identifying him as sergeant-at-arms of the same chapter threw a punch at Richard Matthew Jordan II, 31, known as “Richie,” who was from Pasadena. Jordan punched back.

“At that point in time, the sergeant-at-arms shot Richie point-blank,” the Cossack said.

Police said Jordan died of a gunshot wound to the head.

“Then all the Bandidos standing in the parking lot started pulling guns and shooting at us,” he said. “There were maybe 60 or 70 of us in the parking lot. … We took off running. We scattered. Three of our guys went down instantly. They caught a couple more that tripped and fell, and Bandidos were shooting at them.”

He said that the second man to die was Daniel Raymond Boyett, 44, a Cossack known as “Diesel.” Police said that the Waco man died from gunshot wounds to the head.

The third man down was “Dog,” Charles Wayne Russell, 46, of Winona. Russell’s cause of death was listed as a gunshot wound to the chest.

The Cossack said that he believes the Bandidos had no intention of making peace that day.

“It was a setup from start to finish,” he said.

A parking issue

The Cossack’s story has been impossible to verify, but it is largely consistent with what police have said about how the brawl began.

Waco police spokesman Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said the shooting started in the parking lot with a confrontation over what he called a parking issue. A leader of the Bandidos, who goes by “Gimmi Jimmy,” told TheNew York Times that there had been no incident in the parking lot but that he had heard there was a fight in the restaurant bathroom. He did not respond to numerous emails.

The Cossack’s account is also consistent with a Twin Peaks security video. The Associated Press reported that the video shows the shooting started in the parking lot at 12:24 p.m., and that panicked bikers started running into the restaurant to flee.

The AP reported that the video shows one shot being fired, but it did not say who fired the shot.

After the bloodshed, Texas authorities warned of the threat of further violence, saying that the Bandidos had called for reinforcements from outside the state.

“History has a way of repeating itself,” Swanton said. “Violence amongst these groups leads to more violence amongst these groups.”

The Cossack said he, too, believes more violence is brewing. He said he received a call late Thursday from a friend in Bandidos leadership, who warned him to get out of his house and spread the word that the Bandidos were “coming hard” after Cossacks.

He said he was told “they’re going to hit houses. They’re going to hit funerals. And if another Cossack or a cop gets in the way, so be it.”

The death toll from the “Twin Peaks” shootout was greater than the total number of homicides Waco police investigated in all of 2014 – And all of the “Twin Peaks” dead were shot by police.

Previously Waco Police Spokesman W. Patrick Swanton stated 22 members of law enforcement were present prior to the outbreak of the shooting. Including 10 members of the Waco SWAT unit, 2 sergeants, 1 rookie, the Asst. Police Chief and 4 state troopers.

Newly released information today includes the Waco Police stating 14 Waco PD officers were involved in firing shots which killed 9 bike club members and wounded 18 more.

The 14 officers involved in the gun battle are all now on administrative leave, which is standard protocol in officer-involved shootings, Swanton said. (link)

In addition Sgt Swanton previously stated that all of the 170 arrested bikers were known “criminal gang members”. However, a review by the Associated Press of court records finds at least 115 of the 170 had no police records:

Waco police have said that all those arrested after the shooting belonged to criminal motorcycle gangs. Most of them were being held on $1 million bonds Thursday, charged with engaging in criminal enterprise. Nine people were killed in Sunday’s shootout.

Records searched by The Associated Press show more than 115 of the 170 people arrested in the aftermath of a motorcycle gang shootout outside a Central Texas restaurant have not been convicted of a crime in Texas. (link)

After previously saying he had not watched the CCTV video from the restaurant/bar yesterday (Wed) -which was reviewed by Associated Press reporters- Swanton now says he has watch the CCTV video.

He said he has viewed surveillance videos of the violence, and said they tell a different story from the some of the accounts being spun online.

Family members of a man killed in a biker shootout at a Texas restaurant say he was not part of an outlaw motorcycle gang. That contradicts police claims that all nine bikers who died were members of criminal gangs.

The son of 65-year-old Jesus Delgado Rodriguez, of New Braunfels, told the San Antonio Express-News that his father did not lead a life of violence. An Associated Press review of court records and a database maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety found no criminal history in Texas for Rodriguez.

Family members said Rodriguez had belonged to two now defunct motorcycle clubs but was not part of any club when he was shot and killed at Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco.

Waco police spokesman Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton told the AP on Wednesday that all those killed were members of the Bandidos or the Cossacks. Swanton did not immediately return a message Thursday. (link)

In addition from a lawsuit filed against Twin Peaks by the neighboring restaurant Don Carlos it is claimed the police fired “thousands of rounds” toward the bikers; striking not only bike club members but also Don Carlos customer vehicles.

Summary and personal thoughts: It is entirely possible that some of the bikers were criminals; and it is also entirely possible that twitchy police responded excessively and overreacted to a perceived threat. These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

Who shot at whom first; who did or did not pull the trigger; and what might have spurred the 14 police officers to fire “thousands of rounds” at a group of 3 to 5 potentially armed bikers when the downrange backdrop was a patio filled with hundreds of unarmed bikers is not yet known.

Look closely at this picture:

You can see bullet holes in the customer vehicles in the Don Carlos parking lot.

♦ NOTE: Direction of fire from Don Carlos toward Twin Peaks.♦ NOTE: The downrange backdrop of that fire (for the bullets that miss their target) is the patio of Twin Peaks.

However, apparently pointing out a strong possibility for an overreaction by twitchy police is now considered “Conspiracy Theory”, or something. A radio broadcast today calls our previous outline (which quoting MSM information) as conspiracy theory. [Listen at 8:15]

I find it interesting how intelligent people cannot bring themselves to believe the police may have influenced, initiated, created and/or worsened the events with their militarized (SWAT) presence at a bike club meeting.

Doesn’t anyone else find it curious that an Asst. Police Chief was on scene at Twin Peaks along with the SWAT unit, presumably as scene commander prior to the shootings, and yet no-one has heard from him/her?

Doesn’t anyone else find it curious that initial police statements claimed they had “an active intelligence operation” on the “Bike Gang” which customarily would include monitoring (camera’s, video, etc) and yet the police release NO VIDEO to support their “we were under fire” claims?

I’m former law enforcement for over 20 years. I have ridden with 2 different LEMC clubs. I worked undercover back in late 80’s and have dealt with 1% clubs many times. I have friends in 1% clubs.

I’m pro law enforcement but have a funny feeling that there is lots of horseshit in the story that Waco PD is telling.

I have family living and Working in that area. They have had interaction with the clubs and never felt scared or intimidated. Always felt safe.

Now are we going get the truth or more bullshit? I’m tending on believing the bikers sides on this deal more with every day that passes. Too many people arrested and charged with RICO that were just spending time at TP.

I think LE has overstepped it’s authority on filing these type charges on most these people. $1,000,000 bonds??? BS…

Even if you find reasonable excuses for all the LEO contradictions (fight in bathroom, shots inside, all killed were inside/dragged out etc.); even if you ignore all the misleading statements by law enforcement spokesman Patrick Swanton (100 weapons, 50 weapons, 1000 weapons etc); even if you ignore the lack of willingness to produce factual data to support their claims, ….you are still left with a ridiculous assertion that 170 non-criminal people deserve a million dollar bond because they rode a motorcycle last Sunday to a meeting, and possibly witnessed what happened.

The total number of bikers on scene, according to Swanton, was 200. 170 are arrested, 18 were wounded, 9 were killed, that totals 197. So only 3 people were non-conspirators?

This nonsense about weapons found in vehicles etc. is just that, nonsense.

If you go to a Waco Texas Wal-Mart on Sunday, rope off the parking lot, arrest the first 200 people you see and search their pick-up trucks, suv’s and various vehicles you’ll probably come up with a similar set of statistics.

50 out of 200 people captured at Wal-Mart with prior arrest records; some with pocket knives, chains, handguns, and even rifles in their vehicles etc.

So what? None of that is illegal or unlawful. Ridiculous. Go to a Bass Pro shop on Saturday and you’ll probably find even better stats if that’s the goal.

Another factor which makes it all the more curious is these are the ACTUAL talking points Sgt. Patrick Swanton is relying on to justify the shooting. This innocuous nonsense is what they are focused on. That itself indicates -to a reasonably discerning person- there’s something uncomfortable about the narrative the LEO responders are trying to avoid.

That’s not conspiracy, that’s just common sense.

It is not conspiracy theory the incident occurred at 12:24pm Central Time (1:24 pm Eastern) and in around 90 minutes, 2:04pm CST (3:04pm EST) this press conference was held, giving the specifics of 9 dead and 18 wounded and a restaurant owner who needs to be shut down for non-compliance.

Bikers jailed under $1 million bonds; one bond-reduction hearing set

The more than 170 members of biker gangs that Waco law enforcement officials say were involved in a deadly biker gang shootout Sunday at Twin Peaks won’t be going anywhere soon.

Justice of the Peace W.H. “Pete” Peterson set bonds for 174 gang members charged with engaging in organized criminal activity at $1 million each.

“I think it is important to send a message,” Peterson said. “We had nine people killed in our community. These people just came in, and most of them were from out of town. Very few of them were from in town.”

Meanwhile, a lawyer for Jimmy Don Smith, 59, of Caldwell, moved quickly Monday in getting a bond-reduction hearing set. Dan Jones, a Bryan lawyer, was in Judge Ralph Strother’s 19th State District Court on Monday to request the hearing for Smith, a mechanic with Novosad Enterprises of Caldwell. Strother set the hearing for June 5.

Peterson declined to release the identities of the nine men killed Sunday because he said only one man’s family has been notified that he knows of so far.

He said all but two of those killed were not from the Waco area, but declined to say where they were from.

In affidavits to support the arrests of the bikers issued by Peterson on Monday morning, Waco police Officer Manuel Chavez officially identifies the groups as “members and associates of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club and the Bandidos Motorcycle Club.”

“The members and associates of the Cossacks and Bandidos were wearing common identifying distinctive signs or symbols and/or had an identifiable leadership and/or continuously or regularly associate in the commission of criminal activities,” the affidavit says. “The Texas Department of Public Safety maintains a database containing information identifying the Cossacks and their associates as a criminal street gang and the Bandidos and their associates as a criminal street gang.”

After the shootout, firearms, knives or “other unknown edged weapons,” batons, clubs, brass knuckles and other weapons were recovered from members and associates of both gangs, the complaint alleges.

Story 1: First Official Explosive Documentation From Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) — Profiles in Deceit — Obama And Clinton Lying To The Families That Died in Benghazi and The American People — Why? Coverup of CIA Covert Operation Including Supervision of Arms Shipments Through Third Party Cutout To Syrian Rebels Including Al Qaeda and Islamic Jihadist Terrorists (Now Islamic State) And Win Second Term For Obama and First Term For Hillary Clinton — Both Incompetent and Untrustworthy Leftist Liars — Impeach Obama Now! — Videos

Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack

The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012. The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.

Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.

The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]

The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:

This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.

US Intel knew about weapons going from Benghazi to Syria

Daily News Collective For May 19, 2015

Hillary Clinton Fires Back Over Benghazi Select Committee On The Record

Hillary’s Benghazi Lies Exposed!

Hillary Clinton feigned ignorance when she was questioned about the Benghazi gun-running program by Senator Rand Paul in January 2013.

However, explosive new documents obtained by Judicial Watch prove conclusively that US intelligence agencies were fully aware weapons were being transferred from Libya to Syria before the attack.

That’s not the only Benghazi fact given the spin by the Obama Administration.

Help us spread the word about the liberty movement, we’re reaching millions help us reach millions more. Share the free live video feed link with your friends & family: http://www.infowars.com/show

Military intel predicted rise of ISIS in 2012, detailed arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria

Administration knew three months before the November 2012 presidential election of ISIS plans to establish a caliphate in Iraq

Administration knew of arms being shipped from Benghazi to Syria

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified “Secret” documents from the Department of Defense (DOD)and the Department of State revealing that DOD almost immediately reported that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked “Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman” (BCOAR), and had been planned at least 10 days in advance. Rahman is known as the Blind Sheikh, and is serving life in prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist acts. The new documents also provide the first official confirmation that shows the U.S. government was aware of arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria. The documents also include an August 2012 analysis warning of the rise of ISIS and the predicted failure of the Obama policy of regime change in Syria.

The documents were released in response to a court order in accordance with a May 15, 2014, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against both the DOD and State Department seeking communications between the two agencies and congressional leaders “on matters related to the activities of any agency or department of the U.S. government at the Special Mission Compound and/or classified annex in Benghazi.”

Spelling and punctuation is duplicated in this release without corrections.

A Defense Department document from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), dated September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack, details that the attack on the compound had been carefully planned by the BOCAR terrorist group “to kill as many Americans as possible.” The document was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Obama White House National Security Council. The heavily redacted Defense Department “information report” says that the attack on the Benghazi facility “was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR).” The group subscribes to “AQ ideologies:”

The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012. The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.

“A violent radical,” the DIA report says, is “the leader of BCOAR is Abdul Baset ((AZUZ)), AZUZ was sent by ((ZAWARI)) to set up Al Qaeda (AQ) bases in Libya.” The group’s headquarters was set up with the approval of a “member of the Muslim brother hood movement…where they have large caches of weapons. Some of these caches are disguised by feeding troughs for livestock. They have SA-7 and SA-23/4 MANPADS…they train almost every day focusing on religious lessons and scriptures including three lessons a day of jihadist ideology.”

The Defense Department reported the group maintained written documents, in “a small rectangular room, approximately 12 meters by 6 meters…that contain information on all of the AQ activity in Libya.”

(Azuz is again blamed for the Benghazi attack in an October 2012 DIA document.)

The DOD documents also contain the first official documentation that the Obama administration knew that weapons were being shipped from the Port of Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria. An October 2012 report confirms:

Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.

The DIA document further details:

The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]

The heavily redacted document does not disclose who was shipping the weapons.

Another DIA report, written in August 2012 (the same time period the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria), said that the opposition in Syria was driven by al Qaeda and other extremist Muslim groups: “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The growing sectarian direction of the war was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, which included the “grave danger” of the rise of ISIS:

The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:

This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.

Some of the “dire consequences” are blacked out but the DIA presciently warned one such consequence would be the “renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena.”

From a separate lawsuit, the State Department produced a document created the morning after the Benghazi attack by Hillary Clinton’s offices, and the Operations Center in the Office of the Executive Secretariat that was sent widely through the agency, including to Joseph McManus (then-Hillary Clinton’s executive assistant). At 6:00 am, a few hours after the attack, the top office of the State Department sent a “spot report” on the “Attack on U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi” that makes no mention of videos or demonstrations:

Four COM personnel were killed and three were wounded in an attack by dozens of fighters on the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi beginning approximately 1550 Eastern Time….

The State Department has yet to turn over any documents from the secret email accounts of Hillary Clinton and other top State Department officials.

“These documents are jaw-dropping. No wonder we had to file more FOIA lawsuits and wait over two years for them. If the American people had known the truth – that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack from the get-go – and yet lied and covered this fact up – Mitt Romney might very well be president. And why would the Obama administration continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood even after it knew it was tied to the Benghazi terrorist attack and to al Qaeda? These documents also point to connection between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war – and confirm that the U.S. knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists,” stated Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president. “These documents show that the Benghazi cover-up has continued for years and is only unraveling through our independent lawsuits. The Benghazi scandal just got a whole lot worse for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”

The Worst Day of Hillary Clinton’s Campaign

So far!

In fact, she’s had a series of bad days since she announced her presidential bid April 12. But Monday was the worst of them.

In a bombshell report, the New York Times reported that Clinton, as secretary of state, used her private email to share private intelligence reports from noted conspiracy theorist and political hitman Sidney Blumenthal, at a time when Blumenthal was being paid by the Clinton Foundation and liberal political organizations that helped lay the groundwork for Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The emails included reports on Libya at a time when Blumenthal was seeking business in the country and included dubious information. The Times reported that Clinton nonetheless “took Mr. Blumenthal’s advice seriously” and “continued to pass around his emails even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal’s assessments were often unreliable.”

A second story about Clinton and Libya broke the same day, this one casting further doubt on the Obama administration’s narrative about the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, and specifically on claims Clinton made about nature of those attacks and motivations of the attackers. An intelligence report prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency and sent to Clinton and other senior administration officials on September 12, 2012, just one day after the attacks, concluded that the attack “was planned ten or more days” in advance and was meant to “kill as many Americans as possible.” The report identifies al Qaeda-linked terrorists believed to have been involved in the assault.

Despite this, the Obama administration crafted a public narrative that the attack had evolved from a “spontaneous” protest over a YouTube video and included a wide range of individuals. Clinton cited the video in remarks at a memorial service on September 14, 2012, for those killed in the attacks. She told members of the victims’ families that the administration would bring to justice those responsible for the video. The DIA report and several other Benghazi-related documents were released to Judicial Watch pursuant to a court order in response to a FOIA request.

The DIA report further undermines the administration’s already-tattered claims that its public case was based on intelligence assessments. Emails released in response to a previous Judicial Watch requestshowed that the White House had drafted a set of political talking points that sought to blame the video and not administration policy.

That the DIA report was not released as a result of any previous Benghazi investigations raises additional questions about the administration’s unwillingness to turn over documents related to the attacks and how comprehensive those previous investigations have been. Many of the revelations that have undermined administration claims about Benghazi have come outside of the regular congressional oversight efforts, in part because of the administration’s disinclination to cooperate and in part because of the half-hearted inquiries led by the committees of jurisdiction.

Administration defenders and many in the media claimed that an additional investigation of Benghazi would be unnecessary because of these previous efforts. But these recent revelations validate the decision of House speaker John Boehner to create a select committee and make clear that there is still much more to learn. The State Department only recently turned over documents related to the State Department’s Administrative Review Board examination of Benghazi. The House Oversight Committee first requested those documents more than two years ago – on January 28, 2013. The Benghazi Select Committee is still waiting for reams of documents from the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department.

Beyond that, of course, are questions about emails and documents that the public may never see because Hillary Clinton used private emails to circumvent the record retention requirements of the U.S. government. The committee is examining all options in its attempt to find or recover those discarded emails.

It has been nearly a month since Hillary Clinton took questions from the media. And with the growing stench of scandal it’s likely that she’ll continue to seek to avoid circumstances that might require her to provide answers. That’s a short-term solution to a long-term problem. And even a media that is ideologically sympathetic is showing signs of frustration with her games.

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